Illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be a multibillion-dollar business involving the unlawful harvest of and trade in live animals and plants or parts and products derived from them.

Wildlife is traded as skins, leather goods or souvenirs; as food or traditional medicine; as pets, and in many

credit: National Environmental Education Week

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other forms.

Illegal wildlife trade runs the gamut from illegal logging of protected forests to supply the demand for exotic woods, to the illegal fishing of endangered marine life for food, and the poaching of elephants to supply the demand for ivory.

Illegal wildlife trade harms wild populations of animals and plants and pushes endangered species toward extinction.

Endangered animals and plants are often the target of wildlife crime because of their rarity and increased economic value.

Furthermore, illegal trade negatively impacts a country�s natural resources and local communities that might otherwise benefit from tourism or legal, sustainable trade.

Recognizing the urgent need for a coordinated response to this growing global crisis, on July 1, 2013, President Obama issued an Executive Order that established an interagency Task Force and charged it with developing a National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking.

Released on February 11, 2014, this strategy sets forth a robust, whole-of-government approach that focuses on three key objectives to stop wildlife trafficking � strengthening enforcement, reducing demand for illegally traded wildlife, and expanding international cooperation.

A critical element of the National Strategy is to strengthen international arrangements that protect wildlife.

As the National Strategy states:
we will expand our role to strengthen and ensure effective implementation of international agreements and other arrangements, particularly CITES, the principal international agreement that specifically addresses unsustainable and illegal wildlife, timber, and plant trade.

We will work with the CITES Secretariat and other parties to adopt appropriate measures in response to accelerated or new threats and to improve global implementation of, and compliance with, the Treaty�s requirements.

This project enables the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) to address this critical need.

In the course of the meetings of CITES CoP and CITES Standing Committee, various high priority projects and other measures are approved for enactment, some of which are adopted subject to available funding.

Funding for the execution of such work generally is provided to the CITES Secretariat by Parties to the Convention and other donors.

The United States considers most of the identified projects and activities to be high priority to improve the effectiveness of the implementation and enforcement of the Convention.

The complete list of approved projects and activities can be found embedded within the Decisions of CoP16 and the Summary Records of the Standing Committee, available at www.cites.org.

One of the highest U. S. priorities is the implementation of National Ivory Action Plans (NIAPs) by 19 countries identified as of primary concern, secondary concern, or importance to watch, because of their roles as significant exporters, importers, or transit countries for trafficked elephant ivory.

Information about these countries and the status of their NIAP implementation can be found at http://cites.org/eng/niaps.

The CITES Secretariat has already provided critical support and assistance to many of these countries in the development, review and initial implementation of these NIAPs, and it is critical to the success of these plans that this work continues.