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Posted by : sanne

Wild caught and trade in reptiles appeared to be compelling points. Reptile forums play an indirect role in this.

The 15th CITES meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP15) was held from the 13th until the 25th of March 2010 at Doha, Qatar. On Sunday, 21 March 2010, the proposals from Guatemala and Honduras to place Ctenosaura bakeri, Ctenosaura melanosterna, Ctenosaua oedirhina and Ctenosaura palearis on CITES Appendix II was accepted. The proposal of Guatemala was verbally supported by the CoP15 committee from Egypt, Latin America represented by Costa Rica, The United States, the European Union represented by Spain, China, Kenia, Libia, Brazil and was also supported by TRAFFIC IUCN. The Honduran proposal was supported by Guatemala, Libia, Liberia, Burkina Faso, the European Union and the United States. The only resistance to the Honduran proposal came from the Animal Trade Organization. They thought CITES 3 would be the better choice because the Honduran species were not suffering from excessive trade pressure compared with populations in the wild. The NGO's and IUCN in question were however of the opinon that the Honduran proposal met the requirements of the appendix 1 criteria. In consensus, placement under appendix 2 was decided.

Many organisations from North, Central and South America were occupied with the realization of the proposals. Mentioned are: Zootropic, CONAP, DIBIO-SERNA, ICF, Department of Interior -USA, Humane Society International, Zoo Atlanta, International Reptile Conservation Foundation -IRCF-, Fundacion Islas de la Bahia and Iguana Station. From The Netherlands, the European Studbook Foundation (ESF) and the Dutch Iguana Foundation (SDGL) played a role in the area of research, review and advice.

There are direct clues that the demand on forums for rare or threatened species in captivity can have consequences for (illegal) wild catch. Traders seem to use, among others, forums in Europe and the United States for Ctenosaura bakeri, Ctenosaura melanosterna, Ctenosaura oedirhina en Ctenosaura palearis. Despite the fact that the demand is not very large, it does influence wild catch and trade. In 2008, this led to the export of 240 Ctenosaura palearis from Guatemala. Research results from Carla Carcamo, CITES official of the Honduran government, showed on the CITES conference that in 5 years 3000 Ctenosaura were exported. These animals were only registered as Ctenosaura spp. It is a more than plausible, that a substantial part of these animals were Ctenosaura melanosterna, because Ctenosaura melanosterna is more difficult to trade.

The below mentioned link is the proposal to CITES CoP15. The pdf-file gives on pages 13-34 a number of forums where there is a relation between the development in wild catch and trade.
http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/15/prop/E-15-Prop-11.pdf