78th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee
Opening Remarks by CITES Secretary-General Ivonne Higuero
3 February 2025, Geneva, Switzerland
Thank you very much, Madame Chair.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Standing Committee Members,
Parties and observers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Geneva for the 78th Meeting of the CITES Standing Committee. Your presence here is a testament to your shared commitment to ensuring a sustainable future for our global wildlife.
On behalf of the Secretariat, I am delighted to warmly welcome our Standing Committee Chair, Ms Rosemarie Gnam. I take the liberty to, on behalf of the entire Standing Committee membership, and given time constraints, to congratulate you on your chairing. Your leadership has been invaluable, and we all look forward to embarking on the important discussions ahead with you.
Warm thanks to Switzerland for their generous support which has made it possible for us to meet at the CICG.
And our warm thanks to all the generous donors who continuously contribute to the work of the Convention in support of the Parties. Also given the time constraints, my team and the delegates here will not be thanking you in their introductions, but we will be thanking you very much.
This year we mark a significant CITES milestone – 50 years since the Convention entered into force! Half a century of CITES implementation has brought remarkable achievements in the face of evolving challenges along the way. This has only been possible due to your steadfast commitment to ensuring that international trade in wildlife remains sustainable, legal, and traceable.
It is with great pride and honour that we welcome Turkmenistan as the 185th Party to CITES. On 2 January 2025, the Convention entered into force in Turkmenistan, unifying the Central Asia region’s commitment to sustainable international trade and conservation of CITES-listed species.
Over the next six days, you will take stock of the hard work of the CITES Parties over the past 13 months and consider how to build upon it as we look towards CoP20 later this year. There are a few key areas of good progress I would like to highlight: The CITES-listed tree species and the interdisciplinary study on CITES and Forests. The comprehensive Study on Vaquita and Totoaba and establishment of the Trilateral Enforcement Contact Group for addressing totoaba specimen trafficking. The progress made by Parties concerned by compliance matters in the implementation of the Convention for African teak, Malagasy palisanders and rosewoods for trade in captive-bred specimens, as well as other matters. The activities carried out by the Animals and Plants Committees, as reflected in the Chairs’ reports, including for CITES-listed African carnivores, rosewood tree species, and agarwood-producing taxa. And finally, the continued momentum for CITES youth engagement, in particular through the recent activities of the CITES Global Youth Network.
Thanks to all those who contributed to these significant achievements and to those involved in this past year’s key intersessional meetings and workshops, such as the: Workshop on the Conservation of Amphibians, the Global Workshop on NDFs, the Workshop on Transport of Live Specimens, the Dialogue Meeting for African elephant range States, the LAF and NDF workshop for African rosewood, the workshop for the African region on demand reduction strategies to combat illegal trade in CITES-listed species, the Africa Regional Workshop on Electronic CITES Permitting Systems, as well as the technical workshops on songbird trade and conservation management, aquatic species listed in the CITES Appendices, Non-detriment findings for specimens of Appendix-II species taken from areas beyond national jurisdiction, and marine ornamental fishes, just to mention a few.
I would like to express my deep appreciation to the Chairs of the Animals and Plants Committees, the Chairs of the intersessional working groups, the participants of all the groups, and, as always, my devoted team at the CITES Secretariat.
Despite the vast scope of work for our small Secretariat, their dedication to the technical meetings, assistance to Parties, collaboration with partners, document writing, and administrative responsibilities in preparation for this meeting has been unwavering.
This week we will take important final steps towards CoP20, which will take place in historic silk road town of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, at the end of this year. We are thus honored to have the presence of His Excellency Mr Aziz Abdukhakimov, Minister of Ecology, Environmental Protection and Climate Change of the Republic of Uzbekistan, who will present his vision for a successful and impactful CoP.
We deeply appreciate Uzbekistan’s generous offer to host CoP20 and encourage other Parties to consider hosting future CoPs.
The scale of your work has grown significantly. At this 78th meeting, there are 127 working documents across 87 agenda items, compared to the 49 agenda items of the 58th Standing Committee meeting which took place here in Geneva in 2009.
My colleagues will now put up a slide to demonstrate the sharp growth in CITES decisions and the unchanged number of Secretariat staff over time. Unfortunately, it’s not only about staff pressures but also about availability of financial resources for the work of the Convention.
For example, to ensure that the Committee has time to cover all the agenda items for its 78th meeting, we had to add an extra day for deliberations, and this comes at a cost of 14,000 USD, plus overtime of staff, and we were already over budget.
Clearly, with more species on the Appendices there are greater challenges for the Parties, and this in turn increases the topics to be covered in the Committee meetings and the CoPs.
However, as you are keenly aware there are current political changes and multiple global crises that are rapidly impacting our future outlook for financial resources to address environmental sustainability.
The Secretariat as always remains committed to supporting all Parties, particularly those facing implementation challenges or capacity limitations. However, fulfilling this role requires adequate resources. As such, the triennial budget to be adopted at CoP20 will be a crucial topic of discussion at this meeting.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The CITES Strategic Vision aims for a world where all wildlife trade is sustainable, legal and traceable. It is now more critical than ever to reinforce CITES’ role as a Convention that stands at the intersection of environment, trade and development.
And now with 185 Parties and covering more than 40,000 species of wild plants and animals, achieving the goals of CITES requires strong collaboration and collective commitment.
Given the scarce resources available, both for the Permanent Committees and the Parties, your discussions this week must focus on actionable and impactful recommendations that will shape the future of CITES. To support your prioritization of issues, the Secretariat has prepared an information document pulling together the potential 200 decisions so far from the Animals, Plants and Standing Committee to be sent to the CoP.
I have every confidence that, together, you will seize this opportunity to address the priority wildlife issues through a constructive and respectful dialogue, to achieve a more sustainable and harmonious coexistence with nature.
I wish you a productive meeting and enriching six days ahead.
Thank you.