A review of TRAFFIC's work mid-2008 to mid-2010

1 Early Warning

TRAFFIC's Early Warning programme aims to catalyse responses to new and emerging knowledge about wildlife hunting, harvest and trade levels, patterns and trends. Some highlights from 2008-2010 include:


Trade research leads to action to address trade in song birds for food in Europe

November 2008: TRAFFIC’s report on bird crime in South-east and Central Europe prompted Italy, the main destination and consumer country for songbirds illegally traded within and to the EU, to design an enforcement strategy to address this problem. Action is also now being taken by countries in South-eastern and Central Europe.

 
CITES CoP 15 – some losses, more wins

March 2010: As in previous years, TRAFFIC worked with the IUCN Species Programme to prepare the IUCN/TRAFFIC Analyses of Proposals to Amend the CITES Appendices, circulated to Parties in three languages and freely available on the web ahead of the Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP15). Parties frequently cited the Analyses and TRAFFIC’s recommendations, which were based on them. Although no CITES listings were agreed for marine species, policy decisions were agreed for sharks, rhinos, Tigers and more. TRAFFIC is leading discussions with other WWF and IUCN programmes on how to “make CITES work better” in future, and, with IUCN, has been mandated by the Parties to CITES to review the criteria used for listing aquatic species.
 

CBD 2010 indicators – medicines and meat as flagships for species in trade

May 2010: As part of the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, TRAFFIC and the IUCN SSC Medicinal Plant Specialist Group developed indicators to measure the rates of decline of wild species important to human needs (food and medicine).

These indicators were included in high-profile pieces in Science and the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Outlook 3. The full suite of indicators showed the world’s failure to meet the 2010 Biodiversity Target and helped shape debates at the subsequent CBD meeting. It is hoped that the Food and Medicine Indicators linking biodiversity and human well-being will continue to be a useful measure in tracking progress on the new targets set in Nagoya.