The European Parliament wants the EU to take an ambitious line at the 17th conference of the parties (COP 17) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES, Johannesburg, 24 September -5 October).
Testament to this is the resolution adopted in Strasbourg on Thursday 15 September on this conference, which the EU will be attending for the first time as a party to the Convention.
CITES aims to ensure that the international trade in wild fauna and flora does not become a threat to the survival of species in nature. The challenge is a sizeable one, as it involves effectively dismantling the fourth-largest international criminal network in the world (after drugs, the trafficking in human beings and weapons), which is decimating global biodiversity, the Parliament recalls. Furthermore, the EU is a major transit and destination market for the illegal trade in endangered species of birds, turtles, reptiles and plants.
The Parliament supports the proposals made by the EU and its member states, in particular the proposed resolutions on corruption and hunting trophies, extending the protection offered by CITES to a number of species imported into the EU, particularly as pets.
As corruption plays a central role in this black market and can be seen in all links of the chain of trade in wild species, the MEPs stress that robust and effective anti-corruption measures are critically important. The Parliament welcomes the EU's action plan to tackle this lucrative trade and calls urgently on the EU and its member states to make good on their commitments by putting it into practice (see EUROPE 11577).
The MEPs also call on the EU to adopt legislation to squeeze the illegal trade by banning the import, export, sale, acquisition or purchase of wild animals or plants taken, possessed, transported or sold in breach of the law of the country of origin or of transit.
They urge the EU to ban the export and import of ivory and any commercial buying or selling of ivory within the EU. The illegal killing of African elephants has doubled over the past decade, leading to a decline in elephant populations across Africa, they stress. Within the EU, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom have already banned exports of raw ivory and the member states are therefore urged to follow suit.
The MEPs, who note that many species targeted by trophy hunters are experiencing sharp population declines, support the European Commission's initiative to adopt global guidelines on hunting in the framework of CITES.
As the market for exotic pets is growing in the EU and internationally, threatening many species of reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish and mammals, the European Parliament calls on the member states of the EU to agree on a positive list of authorised species that may be kept as pets, automatically banning species not on it. The MEPs Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy (ALDE, Netherlands) and Catherine Bearder (ALDE, UK) will attend the CITES COP 17 in Johannesburg. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)