CONFERENCE ON ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE BOTSWANA, MARCH 25, 2015

ON Wednesday, March 25, 2015, the follow-up to the London Conference on the Illegal Trade in Wildlife will take place in Kasane, Botswana.
 
The landmark London Conference in February 2014 brought together heads and representatives of governments to discuss the rise in the illicit trade in wildlife and its negative social, environmental and economic impacts.

The high-level Kasane meeting will review the status of implementation of the actions agreed as part of the London Declaration. 

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has for three decades been at the forefront of calls for transnational wildlife crime to be properly recognised and addressed, and last year welcomed the outcomes of the London Conference as a strong indication that world leaders were finally getting serious about tackling international wildlife crime.

 

EIA has prepared a new briefing, High Profit/Low Risk: Reversing the wildlife crime equation, for the Kasane conference. It can be viewed and downloaded at http://eia-international.org/reports/high-profitlow-risk-reversing-the-wildlife-crime-equation.

 

EIA Executive Director Mary Rice will be addressing the Botswana conference and said: “EIA has been looking for evidence that countries are actually taking action and not just talking when it comes to implementing London Declaration commitments.

 

“There is still more work to be done to gather and share information on the transnational criminals responsible for trafficking, and to analyse court judgements so we can better understand what needs to be done to strengthen prosecutions.”