Dear TRAFFIC Supporter,

I write this on World Elephant Day as another busy week comes to an end. It began with news from Viet Nam, where our latest efforts to promote the FairWild Standard to secure sustainable harvesting of wild medicinal and aromatic plant species were boosted through an event where 30 trainers were themselves trained in use of the Standard: they will, in turn, pass the training on to local harvesters so the message is amplified across Bac Kan province. Please watch this short video to learn more about our work in this region.

The following day, TRAFFIC released its Recommendations on each of the Proposals put forward by CITES Parties ahead of next month's Conference of the Parties. These Recommendations use as their foundation the IUCN/TRAFFIC Analyses, which provide background information underpinning TRAFFIC’s advice. Our aim is that the best available information and guidance helps ensure the decisions taken by government representatives at CITES are in the best conservation interests of the species concerned.

From Africa, a report was received on Uganda's first Wildlife Trafficking Stakeholder Workshop.  Hosted by the U.S. Mission Uganda in partnership with TRAFFIC and the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the two-day workshop’s goals were to assess the trends of transnational wildlife crime in Uganda and set priority actions for combating wildlife trafficking at a national level.

The scale of the largely illegal wild bird trade in Indonesia was once again highlighted following TRAFFIC's market surveys, this time in markets in Central and East Java. There are already reports of a number of once common species now becoming rare or entirely disappearing across large parts of their ranges: clearly government action to enforce existing legislation to protect many of these species is just one of several priority actions that need urgently to be taken. 

For more Information, please check: HERE