PRESS INVITATION

25 February 2014 • PRE-14-05
Office of Communications
53-70 Jingumae 5-chome
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8925
www.unu.edu

Contact:Makiko Arima, UNU-IAS+81 45 221 2327
arima@ias.unu.edu

Tokyo Conference on Combating Wildlife Crime
DATE + TIME:

Monday, 3 March 2014, 9:30 AM–5:30 PM (Conference) andTuesday, 4 March 2014, 4:00 PM (Plenary Session and Press Briefing)

VENUE:U Thant Hall (3F), United Nations University Headquarters, TokyoORGANIZER:The United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability

You are cordially invited to attend the Tokyo Conference
on Combating Wildlife Crime, a World Wildlife Day event
starting from 9:30 AM on 3 March, and a conference plenary
session and press briefing starting from 4:00 PM on 4 March.
The events will be held at the United Nations University(UNU) Headquarters in Tokyo.
Each year the illicit wildlife trade accounts for US$ billions in criminal transactions, while destabilizing
ecosystems and pushing some of the world’s most sensitive species closer to extinction. In December
2013, to spotlight the need for protection of wildlife and to recognize its intrinsic value to science, society,ecosystems and economies, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 3 March as World WildlifeDay. This was followed by the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade held on 12–13 February
2014, where 46 countries jointly declared landmark commitments to tackling wildlife trafficking and its
impacts.
Reinforcing these commitments, and in recognition of World Wildlife Day, the UNU Institute for theAdvanced Study of Sustainability will host the Tokyo Conference on Combating Wildlife Crime to raiseawareness of and promote targeted solutions to this pressing global problem.
Since 2005 the UNU has led development of the Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System (WEMS), a
Geographic Information System-based initiative that measures and analyzes wildlife crime data to improve
compliance monitoring for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Faunaand Flora (CITES). Through interdisciplinary development of this transboundary information strategy, theUNU and its partners have empowered four African countries — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Republicof the Congo — to unite against wildlife poaching, through effective and timely information sharing acrossborders.
Despite the success of WEMS and related initiatives carried out by INTERPOL, the World Customs
Organization and the CITES Secretariat, the growing sophistication of trafficking syndicates urgently calls
for an increasingly coordinated response from the international community. To spur new approaches
and partnerships, the Tokyo Conference will bring together leading experts — on wildlife crime andconservation, on transboundary enforcement, and on the latest wildlife monitoring technologies — for aseries of public panel discussions intended to share diverse insight on the current issues impacting wildlife
protection policy.

Tokyo Conference on Combating Wildlife Crime

Representatives from governments, enforcement programmes, international NGOs, and UN agencies will
have a rare opportunity to meet and co-examine their roles in supporting evidence-based policymaking
to fight wildlife crime. Importantly, the conference will feature experts from Japan’s government and NGO
sectors who will share lessons from the country’s experiences of combating wildlife crime.
Persistent obstacles to fighting wildlife crime include both the lack of a common global plan fortransboundary information sharing as well as limited access to updated wildlife crime data. Overcoming
these challenges will be the focus during two days of post-conference working groups, a public plenary anda technical WEMS training.
On 4 March the highlighted outcome of the working groups and plenary session will be the Tokyo
Declaration on Transboundary Information Sharing, a first-of-its-kind commitment to bridging the existingmechanisms in transboundary information exchange while defining a role for science in data analytics,
policymaking and capacity development.
Media representatives and journalists are invited to attend the conference on 3 March as well as the plenary
session and press briefing on 4 March.
Simultaneous Japanese–English interpretation will be provided for the 3 March conference, but will not beprovided for the 4 March plenary session and press briefing.
For further details, or to register to attend, please see the event announcement on the UNU website:
http://unu.edu/events/upcoming/combating-wildlife-crime.html
Journalists who have questions, or who prefer to register by e-mail or phone, may contact Ms. Makiko
Arima, UNU-IAS Communications Associate (arima@ias.unu.edu, +81 45 221 2327).