Tackling Wildlife and Forest Crime
(25.09.2015) The United Nations System, including the CITES Secretariat, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and the World Bank, in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Member States, and civil society partners, will host an evening reception and high-level remarks on wildlife and forest crime at WCSs Central Park Zoo on Sunday, Sept. 27.
Keynote speakers, H.E. Ali Bongo, President of Gabon, and Helen Clark, Administrator, UNDP, will speak about political commitments in response to the challenges of wildlife and forest crime as called for by the recent United Nations General Assembly resolution on tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife and the outcome document entitled Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be adopted at the forthcoming United Nations Summit.
The outcome document includes the vision of countries for the next fifteen years, a call for the protection of wildlife and other living species and, in the new agenda, a call for protection of ecosystems and wildlife, as well as a set of SDGs that include targets which specifically address wildlife and endangered species (15.5, 15.7, 15.c).
To achieve these targets, urgent scaled up efforts which are better financed, coordinated, and effectively implemented need to be taken at the national, regional, and global levels involving all partners.
The event was moderated by John Scanlon, Secretary-General, CITES, with high-level remarks by The Rt Hon Grant Shapps, United Kingdom Minister of State for International Development and Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; Hon. Edna Molewa, Minister of Environmental Affairs, Republic of South Africa; Hon. Tshekedi Khama, Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Republic of Botswana; Ambassador William Brownfield, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs; Cristian Samper, President and CEO, WCS; and Yury Fedotov, Executive Director, UNODC.