Conventions and Policies
Future Plans
Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2006 onwards)
The success of the CITES User’s Guides and The CBD for Botanists has produced an international demand for Kew to carry out in situ training. We now have a Memorandum of Understanding with the CITES Secretariat on capacity building and since the production of the first Slide Pack we have carried out training in China, Chile, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Taiwan, Thailand and Sweden and have also contributed to a number of international training courses. We plan to continue our capacity building activities, moving to producing modules for inclusion in overseas training programmes. We also feel it is a good time to review the use of the internet in CITES training, although web access for enforcement officials remains limited or restricted in many countries.
Our trade research continues to target Defra, EU and CITES priorities while utilising Kew strengths. Since 2002 this has meant an increased emphasis on researching the timber trade and advising Defra on the most appropriate role for CITES in regulating the timber trade. This has combined research on the impact of international trade on certain species and the applicability of CITES with an assessment of the practicality of identification for enforcement purposes. Our work on this area will expand in the coming years, especially as the European Union plans to put in place a series of bilateral agreements with exporting countries in order to regulate the flow of timber imports.
We will seek to bring together our expertise on the convention, experience with CITES implementation, and the best of Kew science to develop practical solutions to the effective implementation of CITES for timber. We will work with the Jodrell Laboratory, outside consultants and enforcement agencies to explore the use of DNA forensic tests to identify CITES timbers in trade. We also plan to produce and publish two CITES User’s Guides (including a full colour manual CITES and Timbers) and two CITES Checklists. We will continue CITES and CBD capacity building at an institutional, national and international level, inter alia training 200 plus individuals per year.
The CBD for Botanists has proved to be a major success and is being used as a template for CBD training in institutions across the globe. It is now out of print. We therefore plan to prepare and publish a fully updated and revised version of CBD for Botanists. Utilising available networks we will build co-operation with the British and Irish PlantNetwork, Botanic Gardens Conservation International and the International Plant Exchange Network.