Brussels, 07/02/2013 (Agence Europe) -The European Union should lead the way in efforts to stop the poaching of African elephants and rhinoceros, and work to ensure that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) cease to use secret ballots as a general practice, the European Parliament states.
This was the main message expressed by MEPs in a resolution adopted on Tuesday 6 February in Strasbourg on the position to be defended by the EU during the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) of CITES, to be held in Bangkok on 3 to 14 March this year.
The resolution urges the parties to CITES to step up their fight against the poaching of elephants and rhinoceros for ivory and horn. Parliament also trusts that several species of sharks will be included in the list of animals for which trade is regulated and that the CITES agenda will grant a higher profile to the fate of polar bears, in order to continue heightening awareness of their situation.
At procedural level, Parliament hopes that the use of secret ballots will cease to be general practice within CITES, in order to ensure transparency and responsibility of the decision-making process. This was a demand that Denmark, a great advocate of transparency, had promoted on behalf of the European Union during its recent term of presidency of the EU Council of Ministers - and that the EU is suggesting should include a provision on conflicts of interest.
Finally, Parliament would like the members of CITES to step up funding for the next few years in order to prevent the over-exploitation of wild fauna and flora through international trade, and for the EU to renew its financial commitment to monitoring the illegal killing of elephants (the MIKE programme).
The non-binding resolution comes in the wake of an oral question put to the EU Council by Matthias Groote (S&D, Germany), who chairs the Parliament's committee on the environment, regarding the strategic objectives pursued by the EU ahead of the COP16. CITES, to which 176 parties have signed up, including the 27 member states of the EU, is the largest global wildlife conservation agreement in existence, and seeks to prevent the over-exploitation of wild fauna and flora through international trade. (AN/transl.jl)