Trade in Wildlife in Europe
While the EU can be a significant driving force to help implement sustainable use environmental strategies, it is also a major driver of illegal and unsustainable trade.
High-level political support for regulating wildlife trade still lags far behind other areas of concern in the EU -despite direct linkages of wildlife trade to the global conservation and development agendas.
A US$100 billion market in wildlife products
Throughout the world, hundreds of millions of plants and animals, worth billions of pounds, are traded illegally and unsustainably each year, impacting directly the survival of many species in their natural environments, as well as affecting the livelihoods of communities living in these environments.
In 2005, the trade in wildlife products in the EU had an estimated declared import value of over US$100 billion.
Illegal commerce threatens not only the well known species such as tigers and elephants, but also plants, timber species and fish, including sharks. The serious and organized nature of wildlife crime often involves high-value commodities, such as caviar. (Link to caviar feature/story)
One third of legal global imports of wildlife products
At the same time, EU member states account for over one third of legal global imports of wildlife trade products.
The EU has a duty to ensure that as a top global importer of wildlife trade products, its role is not detrimental to species in the wild - and that local communities also see benefits from the trade.
What the EU should do
International wildlife trade is regulated through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The Parties to CITES (currently numbering 169) meet every 3 years to review implementation of the Convention.
The 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP14) will be held in the EU (Netherlands, June 3-15) for the first time ever in 2007.
This is the perfect time for the EU to match its words with actions and ensure that trade in wild animals and plants into and within the EU is legal, sustainable and supports sustainable development.
Specific actions that can be taken
To achieve sustainable wildlife trade in the EU, WWF and TRAFFIC believe that the EU needs to focus on two strands:
- To enhance the complementarity of development assistance provided to range states of wildlife trade products by EU donors, in order to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
- To enhance co-ordination of enforcement efforts in the EU, to combat illegal wildlife trade and enhance communication and co-operation on wildlife trade enforcement in EU Member States through an action plan.
