From a conservation or hobbyist perspective, I'm not sure yet what to think of these supposed new quotas (should they actually be implemented). First of all, I suspect many of these species could withstand managed collection and export, and I would welcome quotas based on scientific evaluation of non-detrimental impacts of such quotas (as was done for
F. campani). My concern, however, is a return to old practices where this is once again not the basis of these quotas and they are ultimately either added back to the suspended list, or the chameleon species themselves suffer.
For background, the removal of these species from the suspended list stemmed from a CITES Standing Committee decision to withdraw its recommendation to Parties to suspend trade in these species, pending approval by the CITES Animals Committee of conservative annual export quotas established by Madagascar (SC61 Summary Record, 2011). A species-by-species review by the Animals Committee endorsed a zero quota for each of these species that was proposed by Madagascar, which the CITES Secretariat and Chair of the Animals Committee indicated "demonstrated that compliance with Article IV, paragraph 2 (a) and 3 will be achieved" (link to Article IV:
http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/text.php#IV), and the Standing Committee consequently withdrew its suspension recommendation (Notification No. 2012/057, 2012). Basically, the Standing Committee charged the Animals Committee with approving a conservative annual export quota for these species, to which Madagascar proposed a zero quota (except for
F. campani, for which studies had been done supporting a quota of 250), which the Animals Committee approved, and the Standing Committee thus removed these species from the suspended list because the conservative quota of zero showed that Madagascar's Scientific Authority would issue quotas that will not be detrimental to the survival of that species.
Fast forward a year, and now Madagascar is supposedly going to increase these quotas for 14 species and by as much as 6000+ individuals. If true, that raises considerable concern for me that Madagascar may have proposed a zero quota for these species to avoid scrutiny from the Animals Committee (which was charged with approving conservative annual export quotas) so that the suspension would be lifted, only to impose higher quotas a year later, which may or may not be based on any studies or assessments. To that end, I have yet to hear that any such studies or assessments for these species have been conducted (I'm aware of ongoing efforts with another species not on that list, but none of these). To me this raises red flags of returning to old practices that are not necessarily in the interest of the animals themselves or the long term trade in these species.
Now should these new quotas actually be implemented, I'd love to be proved wrong and find that such studies/assessments were made, but so far from what I've been able to gather, that doesn't seem to be the case. Of course the other side of the coin is that these new quotas are not yet official and we may find that it does not happen. As I said, I genuinely believe that sustainable harvest of a number of these species is possible and I am not opposed to quotas for any of these species that proper assessments support non-detrimental effects on the species. I simply have concerns and doubts at this point about any process that may have taken place to reach these supposed new quotas. Time will tell, I guess.
Chris
