EU as a new member of CITES: implications, opportunities and priorities

Speakers:

David Morgan – Chief of CITES Governing Bodies and Meeting Services

David Morgan has worked on CITES for over 30 years at the country, European and global level.

In his present role in the CITES Secretariat, he will be responsible for running the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa next year

Gerban Jan Gerbrandy MEP

Gerben Jan Gerbrandy will be presenting the perspective from the European Parliament. He has been actively involved with Wildlife issues since the beginning of his political career, playing a key role in the EP resolution on Wildlife Crime and he presented his recommendations for a European action plan to fight Wildlife Crime in 2013.Furthermore Mr Gerbrandy was a member of the European delegation to the Doha CoPs on CITES.

Christophe Hansen

Chris Hansen is the Environment Attaché from Luxembourg EU Council Presidency. He is not an expert in CITES but will hopefully give some insight about the priorities of the Luxembourg Presidency with regards to wildlife.

Helge Zeitler

From the European Commission – Policy Officer in Global Sustainability, Trade & Multilateral Agreements unit.

Helge will focus intervention on Commission perspective on the accession to CITES, its importance, what it means for CoP 17 in preparation of the EU position and at the meeting itself for example voting.

Will Travers – NGO

President of the Species Survival Network, is unfortunately suffering from a sore back. However, Mark Jones, Programmes Manager on Wildlife Policy for the Born Free Foundation will be providing Will’s presentation on his behalf.

Mark has been worked for a number of wildlife NGOs and has extensive knowledge on CITES and other international wildlife protection agreements.