Chris Anderson
Dr. House of Chameleons
The Animals Committee of CITES conducts Reviews of Significant Trade in Appendix-II species for the purpose of ensuring trade levels are non-detrimental to wild populations. These reviews can be triggered by a variety of things, including high absolute trade levels, highly variable trade levels, sudden increases in trade levels, etc. When these reviews determine there is reason to be concerned, the Animals Committee recommends a series of steps that the Management Authorities of the exporting countries have to respond to in order to satisfy CITES that further trade will not be detrimental.
In 1994, Madagascar failed to provide a satisfactory response to such recommendations following a Review of Significant Trade on Chamaeleo sp. (now Calumma and Furcifer sp.). This resulted in CITES issuing a Recommendation to the Parties to suspend all imports of Chamaeleo sp. (except F. lateralis, F. oustaleti, F. pardalis and F. verrucosus) from Madagascar. This trade suspension had been in effect until last year and only this year have quotas for some of these species been reestablished (except for limited quotas for F. campani, which occurred a couple years prior). As evident from this example, these Reviews of Significant trade have the potential to have serious implications on future trade in species under review.
In 2011, the Animals Committee of CITES singled out 24 species for a Review of Significant Trade. This list was narrowed in 2012 based on available data at the time, and 23 were retained for further review, including 6 chameleon species (Chamaeleo gracilis, C. senegalensis, Trioceros melleri, T. quadricornis, Kinyongia fischeri and K. tavetana). As a result, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) was instructed to gather information and provide a preliminary categorization of these species for review at the 2014 Animals Committee Meeting. These species reports were submitting in December 2013, and can be found here: http://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/27/E-AC27-12-04.pdf.
The Animals Committee has just concluded their 2014 meeting, and has assessed this round of Reviews of Significant Trade, ranking each species as either "urgent concern", "possible concern", or "least concern" for each range state. For species listed as either "urgent concern" or "possible concern" for a given range state, a series of recommendations (to be addressed by the Management Authority within 90 days and 2 years) were made. Further, T. montium was identified as a species of priority concern for review, meaning that it will now enter a Review of Significant Trade. These final rankings and subsequent recommendations can be found here: http://www.cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/27/wg/E-AC27-WG-01.pdf. Here is a summary of the rankings, however:
The recommendations for species and range states listed as either "urgent concern" or "possible concern" are available in Annex 1 of the above link. The Management Authorities now have 90 Days to respond to these recommendations for the CITES Secretariat to review.
Obviously there are a lot of implications here for the exportation each of these species. Of particular note, the recommendations for K. fischeri effectively force the Tanzanian Management authority to address their quotas and identification methods in light of the updated taxonomy of the fischeri-complex. In effect, that should eliminate K. multituberculata, K. matschiei and K. vosseleri all being exported as K. fischeri and hopefully result in individual quotas for wild collected specimens of each species (they each already have their own F1 quotas).
Anyway, thought some of you might be interested in this.
Chris
In 1994, Madagascar failed to provide a satisfactory response to such recommendations following a Review of Significant Trade on Chamaeleo sp. (now Calumma and Furcifer sp.). This resulted in CITES issuing a Recommendation to the Parties to suspend all imports of Chamaeleo sp. (except F. lateralis, F. oustaleti, F. pardalis and F. verrucosus) from Madagascar. This trade suspension had been in effect until last year and only this year have quotas for some of these species been reestablished (except for limited quotas for F. campani, which occurred a couple years prior). As evident from this example, these Reviews of Significant trade have the potential to have serious implications on future trade in species under review.
In 2011, the Animals Committee of CITES singled out 24 species for a Review of Significant Trade. This list was narrowed in 2012 based on available data at the time, and 23 were retained for further review, including 6 chameleon species (Chamaeleo gracilis, C. senegalensis, Trioceros melleri, T. quadricornis, Kinyongia fischeri and K. tavetana). As a result, the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) was instructed to gather information and provide a preliminary categorization of these species for review at the 2014 Animals Committee Meeting. These species reports were submitting in December 2013, and can be found here: http://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/27/E-AC27-12-04.pdf.
The Animals Committee has just concluded their 2014 meeting, and has assessed this round of Reviews of Significant Trade, ranking each species as either "urgent concern", "possible concern", or "least concern" for each range state. For species listed as either "urgent concern" or "possible concern" for a given range state, a series of recommendations (to be addressed by the Management Authority within 90 days and 2 years) were made. Further, T. montium was identified as a species of priority concern for review, meaning that it will now enter a Review of Significant Trade. These final rankings and subsequent recommendations can be found here: http://www.cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/com/ac/27/wg/E-AC27-WG-01.pdf. Here is a summary of the rankings, however:
c) Chamaeleo gracilis: of urgent concern for Togo; of possible concern for Benin, Ghana; and of least concern for Cameroon, Guinea, Uganda
d) Chamaeleo senegalensis: of possible concern for Benin, Ghana; and of least concern for Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone
e) Kinyongia fischeri: of urgent concern for United Republic of Tanzania
f) Kinyongia tavetana: of possible concern for United Republic of Tanzania
g) Trioceros melleri: of possible concern for Mozambique
h) Trioceros quadricornis: of possible concern for Cameroon; and of least concern for Nigeria
The recommendations for species and range states listed as either "urgent concern" or "possible concern" are available in Annex 1 of the above link. The Management Authorities now have 90 Days to respond to these recommendations for the CITES Secretariat to review.
Obviously there are a lot of implications here for the exportation each of these species. Of particular note, the recommendations for K. fischeri effectively force the Tanzanian Management authority to address their quotas and identification methods in light of the updated taxonomy of the fischeri-complex. In effect, that should eliminate K. multituberculata, K. matschiei and K. vosseleri all being exported as K. fischeri and hopefully result in individual quotas for wild collected specimens of each species (they each already have their own F1 quotas).
Anyway, thought some of you might be interested in this.
Chris
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