 |
|
| Bushmeat |  |
| Species programmes | |
| • Elephants | |
| • Falcon | |
| • Great apes | |
| • Hawksbill turtle | |
| • Mahogany | |
|
Bushmeat At its 11th meeting, the Conference of the Parties considered the issue of bushmeat (usually understood to refer to the meat, used for food, of any terrestrial wild animal) as a trade and wildlife management issue. Probably most of the trade in bushmeat is domestic and therefore not of direct relevance to CITES (which deals with international trade). However, cross-border trade in bushmeat, where it occurs, is known often to be unsustainable and illegal. Consequently, the Parties decided to set up a Bushmeat Working Group, to promote awareness and action to achieve better and sustainable management of the bushmeat trade (see Decision 11.166). The Bushmeat Working Group, composed of interested range and donor States, has to "examine issues raised by the trade in bushmeat, with the aim of identifying solutions that can be willingly implemented by range States". Initially, the group's work will be on a case-study area comprising Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Organizations that can contribute to better and sustainable management of the bushmeat trade within their own mandates, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Tropical Timber Organization, have been invited to participate in the Bushmeat Working Group of CITES. The Bushmeat Working Group meets two or three times a year in the case-study region. The Group reported to the 12th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (see Document CoP12 Doc. 62) and its mandate has been extended to the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties. Reports of the meetings of the working group are available here:
|
