Canada Joins Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking

Canada Joins Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking



   
April 2007 -   Canada has become the 
newest member of the international Coalition Against Wildlife 
Trafficking, Canadian Environment Minister John Baird 
announced Thursday during a news conference at Washington's 
National Zoo. 
An initiative of the United States, the Coalition Against 
Wildlife Trafficking was founded in 2005 and, with the 
addition of Canada, has grown to include five countries and 14 
international conservation and industry organizations. 
"I welcome the opportunity, especially during Canada's 
National Wildlife Week, to join an international coalition 
whose purpose is to enhance the protection of wildlife 
throughout the world," said Minister Baird. 
Canadian Environment Minister John Baird celebrated Canadian 
Wildlife Week by joining the Coalition Against Wildlife 
Trafficking. 
"Following the drug and arms trade, the trade of endangered 
and threatened wildlife and wildlife parts is now the third 
largest illegal trade in the world, worth about $10 billion a 
year," he said. 
The wildlife trade is also is becoming attractive to organized 
crime, Baird pointed out. Increasingly, law enforcement 
authorities are finding that criminals engaged in the illegal 
capture of or trade in wildlife also are involved in narcotics 
and arms trafficking. 
The international coalition, whose government members include 
the United States, Australia, India and the United Kingdom, 
and now Canada, aims to address the illegal trade of plants 
and animals. 
"We welcome Canada as a partner in this global alliance 
dedicated to combating criminal activity - activity that is 
threatening so many wildlife species with extinction," said 
Claudia McMurray, U.S. State Department assistant secretary 
for oceans and international environmental and scientific 
affairs, who joined Baird at the zoo. 
Claudia McMurray is the U.S. State Department assistant 
secretary for oceans and international environmental and 
scientific affairs. 
"We look forward to robust collaboration that will build on 
the Coalition's work to halt the loss of biodiversity by 
curbing both the supply and demand for wildlife and wildlife 
products," she said. 
Demand for exotic pets, rare foods, trophies, and traditional 
medicines is driving tigers, elephants, rhinos, birds and many 
other species to the brink of extinction, threatening global 
biodiversity. International wildlife trade can contribute to 
the rise in virulent wildlife diseases, such as avian 
influenza and the Ebola virus, that can cross species lines to 
infect humans and endanger public health. 
"Wildlife trafficking is undermining wildlife protection and 
driving many species on our planet to the brink of 
extinction," Baird said. "We need worldwide cooperation if we 
are to safeguard certain species from extinction." 
The Canadian government's fiscal year 2007 budget allocated 
C$22 million in additional funding to strengthen Canada's 
capacity to enforce Environmental protection laws and 
allocated C$110 million over the next two years for more 
effective implementation of the Species at Risk Act. 
A black bear in British Columbia, Canada. These bears are 
illegally hunted for their bile, which is believed to have 
medicinal properties. 
"This funding will help environment newsure our pollution and wildlife 
protection laws are respected," said Baird. 
At the National Zoo, Director John Berry told the dignitaries 
that every animal on the Asia Trail at the zoo is endangered 
today because of commercial exploitation. 
"Much of that exploitation is illegal in nature," he said. 
"And as our population grows many of these animals which have 
been able to have been sustainably used by humans over 
thousands of years unfortunately today with our numbers we 
cannot sustain that commercial usage." 
Berry gave credit to the Convention on International Trade in 
Endangered Species, an international treaty that entered into 
force in 1975. 
"But what was done in 1970s lacks the teeth that are needed in 
this century," said Berry. "And so many organizations are 
working hard to strengthen the controls on this illegal 
trade." 
The Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking seeks to help 
developing countries combat illegal wildlife capture and trade 
and encourage conservation and sustainable use of native 
species by enhancing wildlife governance and law enforcement, 
fostering cross-border cooperation against wildlife 
trafficking, developing economic incentives to conserve 
wildlife or use it sustainably, and reducing demand for 
illegal wildlife. 
Coalition partners have established the ASEAN Wildlife Law 
Enforcement Network, which has worked to break smuggling rings 
dealing in endangered or threatened species and played a key 
role in opening communications between Thailand, Malaysia, and 
Indonesia that led to the repatriation of 48 stranded 
orangutans. 
The coalition supports public relations campaigns to increase 
public awareness of the harm done by trafficking and to change 
consumption patterns that create demand for illegally taken 
wildlife. 
Endangered cheetahs rest in the shade. Head of the Cheetah 
Conservation Fund Dr. Laurie Marker attended Canada's 
announcement event at the National Zoo. 
The coalition also assists with training workshops for law 
enforcement personnel, encourages efforts to establish 
transboundary conservation areas and migration corridors based 
on established natural ranges and patterns of movement, and 
supports strengthening legal and judicial systems to set tough 
penalties for wildlife crime. 
Coalition efforts target supply regions like South Asia, the 
Amazon, Central Africa and Central America; consumer nations 
such as China, Japan and the United States that receive the 
products; and transit regions like southern Africa and some 
East Asian nations. 
Organizations that are members of the coalition are - IUCN-the 
World Conservation Union, American Forest and Paper 
Association, Cheetah Conservation Fund, Conservation 
International, Humane Society International, International 
Fund for Animal Welfare, Save The Tiger Fund, Smithsonian 
Institution, Traffic International, WildAid, Wildlife 
Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the World 
Wildlife Fund. 

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