W.C.S. Belize Makes Policy Recommendations to Address Illegal Trade of Wildlife

The Wildlife Conservation Society Belize has made several policy recommendations. W.C.S is recommending an amendment of all wildlife focused legislation to include the term ‘Illegal Wildlife Trade.” The environmental group is also seeking the enactment of the national Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to strengthen national implementation of the Convention.

Kamille Pennil, Terrestrial Coordinator, W.C.S. Belize

Kamille Pennil

“This convention regulates the trade of endangered species and it ensures that it is done sustainably. Belize is signed on to it but it is important to us for us to then have our national legislation that supports the convention and supports atonal implementation. Currently Belize does have a draft national legislation. I think it was tabled to Cabinet back in September if I am not mistaken but it has not been enacted. So that is one of the first things that we need to address this trade is to ensure that we have that enacted. But we also need to do other things like establish a consistent and long term monitoring so we are capturing data on this trade and we can definitely do a better on estimating what this trade is costing the country. Of course another big one is improving enforcement. I know we talk about this all the time. We have very limited human resources so we really have to use our resources strategically and one good way of doing this is implementing SMART tool. It is an enforcement technology. It allows us to collect enforcement data and based on data you are able to determine where you should be directing your resources.”