4 April 2014: Following a meeting in Brussels, Belgium, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Madagascar are calling for the halt of illegal trade in timber from Madagascar, namely rosewood, palisander and ebony. Hery Marcial Rajaonarimampianina, President of Madagascar, and Secretary-General John Scanlon, CITES, met in Brussels on 3 April to talk about urgent actions to address the illegal timber trade. Recent reports point to seizures of 110 tonnes of rosewood in Tanzania (through Operation Cobra II), among others.

President Rajaonarimampianina noted that Madagascar’s proposal to list its populations of rosewood, palisander and ebony in CITES Appendix-II was agreed by consensus at the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP 16) to CITES. While a number of national measures to tackle the illegal trade are underway, he called for greater international support and cooperation, especially from transit and destination countries. Secretary-General Scanlon added that all concerned states should remain vigilant in ensuring the legality of all CITES-listed timber shipments coming from Madagascar.

At the meeting, the CITES Secretary-General on behalf of the International Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) offered immediate support to Madagascar through the Consortium and recommended the rapid deployment of a Wildlife Incident Support Team (WIST), to be led by INTERPOL. WIST will guide and facilitate appropriate follow-up law enforcement actions. ICCWC, through the World Customs Organization (WCO), is also convening a meeting of Customs and other officials from source, transit and destination states, to agree on joint strategies to improve international cooperation and coordinated enforcement responses to curb the trade in illegal timber from Madagascar. CITES also offered the possibility of future assistance under the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO)-CITES programme.

A CITES mission is due to visit Madagascar in late May 2014 to assist in the implementation of the agreed activities. [CITES News]