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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Climate Change

In its next-to-last day, the CITEs meeting brought climate change into its future.  A decision , prompted by a  US request on the first day of the Conference, was adopted that says:  “Given the implications of climate change for science-based decision-making, the Animals and Plants Committees shall identify the scientific aspects of the provisions of the Convention … that are actually or likely to be affected by climate change, report their findings, and make recommendations for further action …”.

The U.S. proposal to list polar bears on Appendix I (endangered), which was defeated, was justified by the U.S. on the grounds that climate change would inevitably lead to the loss of polar bear habitat and thus commercial international trade in bear parts  needed to be banned to reduce the threats to the bear.  We should expect more proposals like this in the future now that CITES has embraced climate change as an issue.

 

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