CMS COP Day 2

Day 2 opens. The rain is falling outside; part of Rome is under the snow and the local TV also shows some fairly serious flooding near by.  In the meeting room we are quite snug and the various daughter conservation agreements of the Convention are telling us about their progress. The cetacean agreements make their reports: ACCOBAMS (the Mediterranean and Black Sea agreement) tells the meeting about the progress it is making – the list is long and impressive.

ASCOBANS (The North and Baltic Seas Agreement) follows with another thorough report. WDCS congratulates ASCOBANS, its Parties and the Secretariat on their hard work in this last period and calls for the Parties to redouble their efforts for small cetaceans in this region. WDCS comments that there have never been more threats to these animals and concrete actions are needed to conserve them. In particular the threat of bycatch must be addressed. The ongoing deaths of thousands of animals in fishing nets in the North East Atlantic, for example, is totally unacceptable and should urgently be addressed. We would also be remiss if we did not congratulate ASCOBANS on its hard work, the WDCS spokesman adds. There is a report-back on elephant work that follows; we move on to turtles; then UNEP reports on its work.

Over lunch we attend a rather scary marine species working group – a rather complicated line up of resolutions is being discussed. Lunch is grabbed out on the wet streets…. Then back into the ‘Meeting of the Whole’. In the afternoon, we start a discussion on the budget (this is swiftly withdrawn behind closed doors) and then bird flyways are discussed, including the situation of the Siberian Crane. This is a migratory flagships species – critically endangered and depends on large water areas to survive. For more about it see http://www.scwp.info.

All the delegates at the meeting are being given the gift of an animal adoption by the Italian Government – they have a choice of a Siberian crane, a saiga antelope or a bottlenose dolphin – the latter c/o WDCS.

The day closes with another working group on the climate change resolution and a reception on the famous 8^th floor of the FAO building hosted by France. There is some very animated discussion between some European countries and some NGOs as it is far from clear what the EU is supporting.

WDCS CMS COP Team: Mark and Alison at the front, Niki and Nicola behind.

Here are the texts of a couple of interventions that we made today. Firstly on the budget:

WDCS believes that CMS is important. It is the only international implementing treaty that provides a flexible platform to develop measures that can be tailored to particular conservation needs, and has the mechanisms to implement on-ground conservation activities, attributes that offer a great potential for multiple threat mitigation and the protection of endangered species. The growth of Parties to CMS in the past triennium indicates that Governments agree with this position. Therefore, it cannot be overstated how important it is that the work of this convention is supported and encouraged to grow. We urge delegates at CMS CoP9 to give close attention to the issue of resources. The CMS Strategic Plan 2006-2011 demonstrates the breadth of work that is to make a significant contribution to the conservation of migratory species and biodiversity in the aquatic and terrestrial environments. No other convention has this mandate or capacity. CMS’s position in the global conservation effort is vital, and it is imperative that we sufficiently support the CMS in order to drive an agenda that is of the greatest importance to us all.