Latin America demands greater severity against wildlife trade

Nearly 30 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia on Friday joined the region's concern about the incessant illegal wildlife trade, in one of the most mega-diverse areas of the world, and demanded that this activity be recognized as a serious crime and apply sanctions accordingly.

The official delegates of these nations signed the Lima Declaration today, at the end of the First High-Level Conference of the Americas on Illegal Wildlife Trade, which sought to alert the seriousness of this activity and called on nations to design policies to fight it effectively.

This illegal trade "has adverse consequences for the species and ecosystems of the region and for the economy, security and welfare of its indigenous peoples and local populations," the document said.

MEGADIVERSE REGION AND HOME OF RISK SPECIES

He also said that Latin America has "nine of the megadiverse countries on the planet, 55 of the 195 land and freshwater ecoregions in the world."

In addition, it has 20% of key areas for biodiversity identified worldwide and about 25% of the 14,000 species of taxonomic groups evaluated and classified as high risk of extinction.

In the meeting, the jaguar (Panthera onca) was declared as an emblematic species of the Americas because of its importance in the maintenance of natural landscapes and the functionality of ecosystems.

According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) there would be about 64,000 jaguar specimens throughout its distribution range, which in turn has been reduced by almost 50% in the last hundred years

The species of the region are threatened by transnational criminal networks dedicated to wildlife trafficking, their parts, products and derivatives, which include poaching and other associated crimes such as logging, fishing, illegal mining, drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering assets and corruption, said the Lima Declaration.

In this regard, he proposed a series of measures before the governments and regional economic integration organizations gathered at the conference:

- RECOGNIZE ILLEGAL TRADE AS A SERIOUS CRIME

The main call of the high-level conference has been to recognize poaching and illegal wildlife trade as serious crimes in national regulations and to apply penalties and fines consistent with the seriousness of the crime.

Similarly, the Lima Declaration asked to combat wildlife crimes linked to the Internet with effective penalties and penalties.

Similarly, he requested to adopt the use of financial investigation techniques and support public-private partnerships to identify illicit financial flows.

- ATTACK THE DEMAND

Delegates agreed to develop strategies aimed at eradicating the demand and supply of illegal wildlife products and promoting zero tolerance for this crime and its related crimes.

In the same vein, promote the strengthening of cooperation networks of cross-border and regional control to improve the coordination, investigation, prosecution and punishment of these crimes.

- INVOLVING NATIVE COMMUNITIES

Countries agreed that they need to encourage active participation and close collaboration with indigenous peoples, local communities, civil society organizations, the private sector and academia to create relationships that help create behavior changes and reduce the demand for wildlife. .

These actions involve developing economic development alternatives (for indigenous peoples) and working with these social groups to deal with crime in a coordinated, effective and urgent manner.

- RESOURCES OF THE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

The delegates of the nations agreed to encourage cooperating, donor and financial agencies to contribute to the implementation of the actions proposed through the provision of financing and technical assistance in support of the efforts of the countries, especially in border areas at the level binational and sub-regional way.

- COLOMBIA HEADQUARTERS OF THE SECOND HIGH LEVEL CONFERENCE

The II High Level Conference of the Americas on Illegal Wildlife Trade will be held in Colombia in 2021, in response to the offer made by that nation.