EN
C 132/52
Official Journal of the European Union
14.4.2023
Wednesday 5 October 2022
90.
Urges further the EU to ensure that the CITES Secretariat takes a risk-based approach to the implementation of the CITES missions to countries with captive Asian big cat facilities of concern; 91.
Notes with great concern that all five species of the Panthera genus (tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard) have an unfavourable conservation status varying from ‘near threatened’ to ‘endangered’ while their populations are decreasing; 92.
Urges all the parties to prohibit commercial trade, without exception, in the five species of the Panthera genus (tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards and snow leopards); calls, furthermore, on the Member States to prohibit captive breeding of these species by private entities, other than licensed zoos, as this can facilitate their illicit trade; 93.
Points out that the legal commercial trade in captive-bred species such as tigers and other big cats is highly detrimental as it stimulates demand, complicates enforcement, and provides abundant laundering opportunities; 94.
Calls for the closure of tiger farms and for an end of all commercial trade in captive-bred tigers and their parts;
95.
Calls on the Commission, the Member States and all CITES parties to ensure that the African lion is included in Appendix I to give it optimal protection status and calls for a crackdown on the illegal trade in the African lion, which is mainly with Asian countries;
Elephants 96.
Calls on the Commission to fully support and actively advocate the inclusion of all African elephant populations in Appendix I of CITES and to oppose moving any elephant populations from Appendix I to Appendix II; 97.
Calls on the Commission and Member States to support the development of a simple and unified legal framework on the trade in live African elephants caught in the wild, limiting exports to in situ conservation programmes or secure areas in the wild, within the species’ natural and historical range in Africa; 98.
Highlights the position of the African elephant range states belonging to the African Elephant Coalition and of the IUCN Species Survival Commission — African Elephant Specialist Group, which do not endorse the removal of African elephants from the wild for any captive use; 99.
Urges the EU to highlight the poor ongoing implementation of all provisions of CITES Decisions 18.226 and 18.227, and to strongly encourage all the parties to address these provisions in full, while being cognizant of commitments by several Asian elephant range states to implement more secure systems of registration, marking and tracing of live Asian elephants; 100.
Urges the closure of all remaining legal domestic ivory markets, such as that in Japan, as a matter of urgency and calls on the EU and all the parties to oppose any proposals seeking to remove restrictions on the trade in ivory; 101.
Calls on the Commission and Member States to require increased transparency and improved management of ivory stocks and stockpiles, and encourage their destruction; 102.
Calls on the EU to follow up its suggestion to the 74th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee and ensure inclusion in Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) reports, including the report to be submitted to CoP19, of an analysis of ivory seizures connected to each party with legal domestic markets for the commercial trade in ivory, and to request the CITES Secretariat to use information collected via the Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), ETIS and the National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) process to conduct an analysis of where the largest undeclared stockpiles are likely to exist; 103.
Urges the EU and its Member States to support recommending a review of the NIAP process to ensure it remains fit for purpose, and calls for further efforts by the parties concerned under the NIAP process on ivory stockpiles;