Secretary-General's statements

        Joint Statement by John E. Scanlon, Secretary-General of CITES and Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of CMS   Distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to this very important and timely meeting. Firstly, let us express our most sincere thanks to H.E. Ms. Maria Mutagamba, Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities of Uganda, for hosting this meeting and for investing her time and energy into this process.

CITES and the UN Conventions against Corruption and Transnational Organized Crime John E. Scanlon, CITES Secretary-General 25th session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Plenary Session 24 May 2016   Chair Distinguished Delegates I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Commission for the opportunity to address you this morning. This Commission is very familiar with the scale and nature of illicit wildlife trafficking and the devastating impacts it has not only on animals and plants and entire ecosystems – but on development, local livelihoods and in some cases national economies and security.

John E. Scanlon, CITES Secretary-General 14 April 2016   Hon. Dato Sri Dr Haji Wan Junaidi bin Tuanku Jaafar, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of Malaysia Hon. Dato’ Sri Azizan Ahmad, Secretary General, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment ----- I would like to express my most sincere thanks to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for inviting me to witness the destruction of 9.55 tonnes of confiscated African elephant ivory today. Over the past 24 months we have seen countries in Africa, East, South East and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America destroy stockpiles of illegally traded elephant ivory that has been seized and confiscated. -----

The global community observed UN World Wildlife Day for the third time on 3 March 2016 with countries and people from right across the globe rallying around the theme “The future of wildlife is in our hands”. This special day for wildlife on the UN calendar has once again given the world a chance to reconnect with our planet’s wild side and to acknowledge our collective responsibility to bring illegal wildlife trade to an end. The CITES Secretariat, as the UNGA-designated global facilitator for the observance of the Day, is delighted to advise that the response to WWD2016 was a tremendous success with the scale of participation and level of engagement of countries, organizations and people from around the world exceeding all expectations.