18 April 2016 - The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) and the Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation of the EU (FACE) representing 7 million hunters in Europe and 30 million worldwide, have addressed the CITES Management Authorities in all European member states. The CIC and FACE have expressed their sincere concerns about the EU Commission’s draft proposals for the forthcoming 17th Conference of the Parties to CITES in September in Johannesburg, South Africa.
They have criticized the proposed new regulations for the international movement of hunting trophies as disproportionate and in contradiction to the convention itself. These additional requirements are an imposition of heavy scientific, financial, and administrative burdens on exporting countries—most of them in the developing world—by the EU. These issues far beyond the relatively minor problems believed to be caused by trophy hunting.
Trophies, which are traded only in small quantities, would become subject to conditions that are not even applied to high-volume trade of Appendix II species. At the same time, the EU and its Member States do not apply similar requirements for domestic hunting.
CIC President Bernard Lozé called the EU proposals the “the proverbial sledgehammer to kill a mosquito.”
The EU, together with all other CITES Parties, should strive to improve the enforcement of existing rules and the dialogue between exporting and importing countries, and should not be pushing for measures that could virtually strangle all wildlife conservation efforts, including the effective fight against poaching, with far reaching environmental, economic, and social consequences in many countries. This would be contradictory to wildlife conservation and the ongoing efforts to combat poaching.
The CIC, together with its African State Members, will take these issues up and discuss them with EU representatives during its General Assembly, which will be held at the end of the week in Brussels.