New era in fighting wildlife crime!

A glory day for all conservationists and environmentalists around the world!

Finally, wild life protection through international law enforcement agencies gets a higher priority!

Yesterday was the closing date for the 15th Conference of the Parties being held in Doha, Qatar and organised by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). There are flashing lights pointing into a new, better organised and more strict law enforcement era for bringing wildlife criminal to justice. Behind bars, where they belong. Aiming to introduce this era is the recently-formed International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC). Made up of the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Customs Organization. Wow!

Let me quote Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary-General of the CITES: “We are determined that there will be a level playing field and that a new era of wildlife law enforcement is introduced. An era where those who rob countries and communities of their natural resources will face a determined and formidable opposition. It is high time that more wildlife criminals end up behind bars, where they belong.”

Read full CITES press release: Bringing an organized response to organized wildlife crime

In addition to these measures, there seems to exist the rumor that the Russians want to convince all the Caspian Sea states to pass a respective general fishing ban in the entire Caspian Sea for the duration of 10yrs. Yes, that’s right. Not only for sturgeon species, but for all fish stocks. This would be the only realistic time frame so that the existing sturgeon wild populations could recover their stocks. Lets all cross fingers for that!