TRAFFIC South America

Region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela, and French Guiana
Office: Ecuador
Founded: 1985
1st Director: Juan Villalba-Macias
Current Director: Bernardo Ortiz
Contact Details

Regional overview
South America is a biologically and culturally diverse continent that, ever since European colonization, has been heavily exploited for its mineral and other natural resources wealth for the last three centuries. Many of the products continue to be important to the economies of the region and to international markets. These include oyster pearls, Brazilian wood, Caribbean mahogany, primates for pets and biomedical research, birds, in particular macaws and parrots, bird feathers, reptile skins and mammals skins for the fashion trade, latex and quinine.

Office history and key wildlife trade decisions in the region
TRAFFIC South America was first established in Uruguay in 1985, although the office closed in 1995 after facing financial difficulties. Work on plant trade issues continued from 1996, hosted by IUCN in Quito, Ecuador, where a TRAFFIC regional office was reopened in 1999.

1988: published a report on the illegal Caiman skin trade from Parguay and Argentina (Las Re-exportaciones Argentinas de Productos de la Fauna Silvestre de Origen Paraguayo Comercio Ilegal de Cueros de Caiman yacare)
1989: published a report into the parrot export trade from Argentina (Exportaciones de Psittaciformes de la República Argentina)
1993: published report into illegal trade in wild animals in Brazil (Transito de Comércio Ilegal de Animais Silvestres no Brasil)
1997: examined CITES Appendix-III listing for Big-leaf Mahogany El Apéndice III de CITES y el comercio de la caoba (Swietenia macrophylla)
1999-2001: reported on medicinal plant trade in Ecuador (Ecuador: Uso y Comercio de Plantas Medicinales: situación actual y aspectos importantes para su conservación), Brazil (Plantas Medicinales de Brazil: Aspectos Generales Sobre Legislación y Comercio) and Colombia (Uso y Comercio Sostenible de Plantas Medicinales en Colombia)
2000: published an examination of Sea Cucumber trade in Ecuador (Evaluation of the trade of Sea Cucumber Isostichopus fuscus in the Galapagos Islands During 1999)
2001: producing briefings on Big-leaf Mahogany trade, reviewing legislation and harvest and trade controls in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru.
2002: published a report on Patagonian Toothfish fisheries in South America (La Pesca y el Comercio de Bacalao de Profundidad 'Dissostichus eleginoides' en América del Sur: Una Perspectiva Regional)