28th September 2016 | PEGAS | www.freetheapes.org

Original article 

At the CITES 16th Conference of the Parties (CoP) in 2013 in Bangkok, CITES issued Decision 16.67, which requested the Standing Committee to consult with various interested parties “with a view to establishing an illegal trade reporting mechanism, and present a summary of its consultations and its recommendations at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties.”

At CoP 16 the UN released Stolen Apes, which presented overwhelming evidence that illegal trade was a significant problem. Not only did it result in the loss of 3,000 great apes annually, the trade put hundreds of orphaned infants into a life of slavery and suffering.

Here we are at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Johannesburg. What did the Standing Committee summary say? The important part stated that it “…recommended that reporting on illegal trade in great apes should be part of the new annual illegal-trade report, as presented in Annex 5 of document SC66 Doc. 30.2.”

If one examines Annex 5 you will see that it is not an illegal trade reporting mechanism – it is a report of international trade seizures. There is a big difference between the two.