Summary
SC66 participants gathered for the 4th day in Geneva. Drawing attention to 14 parties (Bhutan, Central African Republic, Congo, Grenada, Guinea, Mali, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Panama, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, San Marino, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu), that have failed to submit annual reports for three consecutive years and have not provided adequate justification for this, SC66 agreed to to suspend all trade with 14 countries if they do not submit their annual reports within 60 days.
SC66 also considered enforcement issues and the review of SC recommendations to suspend trade made more than two years ago. In the afternoon, Kuwait introduced the recommendations from the workshop she hosted on illegal trade in cheetahs, which the SC endorsed.
At the end of the day, participants debated an application from the US to include the Hyacinth macaw in the CITES Register of operations that breed Appendix-I animal species for commercial purposes and the objection by Bolivia to this. As agreement could not be reached on this matter, Bolivia requested a vote, which resulted in the SC66 agreeing to the deletion in the Register of captive breeding operations of Hyacinth Macaw Aviary Inc., in the US, for the breeding of the Hyacinth macaw.
IISD Reporting Services, through its ENB Meeting Coverage, has provided daily web updates and a summary and analysis report from the 66th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Our summary and analysis report is available in HTML and PDF.
IUCN delegation at work
L-R: Sue Lieberman and Nick Mitchell, the Wildlife Conservation Society
L-R: Urs Breitenmoser and Christine Breitenmoser, Co-Chairs, IUCN Cat Specialist Group
Delegates in consultations preparing to complete the work of the Standing Committee.
“Once at CITES you can never leave CITES”: Jonathan Barzdo, retired CITES staff, back at work.