Debate: Key objectives for the CITES CoP meeting in Panama
Date: TUESDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2022
Speaker: Helena Dalli
Language: EN

With regard to the positive list for pets, the feasibility and advantages of establishing a positive list for exotic animals to be kept as pets needs to be carefully analysed as it is a complex issue, of course, cutting across animal welfare, human and animal health, trade and others, with potential implications in all of these areas. So the Commission is ready to conduct a study to look into the issue. With regard to a regulation on the trade in wildlife, the Commission keeps EU policies under review and is ready to explore the need for added value and feasibility of new legislative and policy initiatives to ensure that EU action against wildlife trafficking remains sufficiently strong and proportionate to the threat posed by wildlife trafficking and the experience in implementing existing legislation, based on the rules of the country of origin, such as the EU Timber Regulation or the US Lacey Act, would need to be considered.  Another question on whether the EU position on the CITES scope is consistent with the biodiversity strategy. The Commission assessed the proposals in relation to the listing criteria and the obligations in the Convention, taking into account the precautionary principle. But ambition cannot be at the expense of not respecting the rules, of course.  So the Commission proposed to the Council to oppose only eight of the 52 listing proposals, and four out of those eight are to reduce the controls on certain species. So these proposals clearly do not meet the criteria in the Convention and the Commission proposal is ambitious as it supports 35 out of the 52 listing proposals. For nine proposals, the available information was not enough to judge the scientific merits, and therefore we proposed an open position, and this is for reconsideration should additional information become available.  Whether the EU should support all the proposals by the range states. For scientists to function effectively and to remain relevant and implemented, it is necessary to ensure that the listing of species is based on the criteria foreseen in the Convention, taking into account the best available scientific information, of course.  But not all proposals by the range states fulfil these criteria. So in such cases, the EU is committed to supporting range states to address the concerns in other ways, using tools that are better adapted than those under CITES, such as, for example, NaturAfrica – an extensive initiative that will support biodiversity conservation in Africa. With regard to trophy hunting, the EU has been pursuing a balanced approach towards the trade of hunting trophies on which widely divergent positions are held by various countries and NGOs. So legal, well-regulated trophy-hunting programmes play an important role in delivering benefits for both life conservation and for the livelihoods and well-being of indigenous people and local communities living with wildlife.  So ensuring a return of benefits for local communities, certainly in areas where other resources are scarce, creates an incentive for local communities to be willing to live next to the wildlife and to continue to protect these species.  But EU law goes beyond the protection required by CITES for listed species. Permit issuance relies on the positive opinion of the scientific review group, which is mandated to ensure that inputs of listed species are kept at a sustainable level and will not deplete the species’ population.  So the EU intervenes and stops imports when information reveals a threat for the survival of a population. So this corresponds with a precautionary, but also proportionate, approach based on the best available science.  With regard to proposals aiming to stop trade in live elephants, international trade in live elephants, especially when it takes the animals out of their natural range, is a very sensitive issue that generates expressions of public concern as we know.  It is a highly divisive topic amongst African countries, and the EU has submitted for consideration by the parties a working document to clarify the framework for trade in live elephants, taking a comprehensive approach and building a joint understanding amongst all the range states.  So to conclude on this, wildlife trafficking remains a worrying – a very worrying, I would say – global phenomenon, with wide-ranging ecological and socioeconomic impacts. As a source, transit and destination region for trafficked wildlife, the EU has a key role to play in the fight against illegal wildlife trade.  So let me thank you once again for following this topic so closely and for the importance which you attach to it, which is indeed merited.