Bridges Trade BioRes Review • Volume 2 • Number 4 • December 2008

Trade issues highlighted at IUCN Congress

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The 2008 meeting of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress - the world’s largest conservation event - saw discussion of a number of trade related issues, including labelling to ensure sustainable trade in medicinal plants, illegal wildlife trade, sustainable tourism and carbon trading.

One of the most anticipated events of the 5-14 October congress in Barcelona was the release of IUCN’s updated Red List of Threatened Species. The new list, which undergoes major analysis every four years, stated that over a quarter of all mammals are now under threat of extinction.

The congress, attended by 8,000 leaders from government, civil society, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector, strives to be a forum for all those concerned with conservation. Through dialogues, negotiations and, ultimately, resolutions, this year’s Congress produced several trade-related developments.

New labelling system for trade in medicinal plants

Signatory institutions to an international standard that promotes the sustainable management of wild plants used in medicines and cosmetics have agreed to create an industry labelling system that will allow sustainably harvested products to be easily identified.

The new international labelling system, which was endorsed by the parties to the International Standard for Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP), will primarily be used in the herbal products industry. More than 320,000 tonnes of medicinal and aromatic plants are harvested in the wild and traded annually and many are harvested unsustainably and in danger of extinction.

“Industry adoption of the standard will ensure sustainable use and equitable sharing of the world’s wild plant resources,” said IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “This new agreement marks a significant step forward in the sustainable use of wild plants important to human health and well being.”

Illegal wildlife trade

The aforementioned Red List survey specifically targeted Vietnam and Cambodia which, according to the report, face an “empty forest syndrome”. Endangered species are “getting vacuumed out of some areas where they were common,” the report says.

Conservation experts say that illegal trafficking remains a serious concern. David Emmet, regional director of the Indo-Burma program at Conservation International, says that demand for endangered species from countries such as China is fuelling the black market. Two Cambodian species that are highly sought after for their use in medicine and traditional clothing have been newly classified as ‘endangered’ by the Red List this year.

Another one of the report’s striking statistics revealed that 79 percent of primates in South and Southeast Asian now face extinction.

New global standards for tourism services

Sustainable tourism also received international attention at the forum. Sustainability issues regarding tourism, an important source of revenue in many developing countries particularly in ecologically sensitive areas, were addressed in both economic and environmental terms.

A coalition of 27 organisations used the World Conservation Congress to launch its Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC), a set of guidelines for sustainable practices in the tourism industry. The GSTC was developed over the past 15 months after review of more than 60 sets of criteria already being implemented around the globe.

The guidelines focus on four areas: maximising tourism’s social and economic benefits to local communities, reducing negative impacts on cultural heritage, reducing harm to local environments, and planning for sustainability. The coalition also introduced its accreditation organisation for sustainable tourism certification programs, the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (STSC).

Carbon trading and indigenous populations

While many environmentalists have been applauding the likelihood of a comprehensive carbon trading scheme being incorporated into the future successor to the Kyoto Protocol, several indigenous groups now say that the commoditisation of carbon could deprive them of access to food, clothing and building materials if forests are bought up by investors. Locals also say that mapping out territories in a way that is fair to those whose livelihoods depend on them needs to be addressed.

Indigenous groups joined with 250 other representatives of business, trade unions, forestry companies, and governments at the Congress to issue a joint statement entitled, ‘Beyond REDD: The Role of Forests in Climate Change’.

“The huge step is having a unified statement from businesses to indigenous groups,” said Daniel Birchmeier, senior program officer for Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). “That can’t be ignored.”

Throughout the IUCN Congress, indigenous groups pushed for equitable representation in future climate negotiations as well as assurances that conservation efforts do not leave them marginalised.

“For forests to fully achieve their potential to address climate change their governance must be improved and processes established to empower disenfranchised people, including Indigenous Peoples,” the document reads. “The importance of mapping and securing the tenure, property, and carbon rights of Indigenous Peoples, family forest owners, and local communities, and devising effective mechanisms for the distribution of benefits, cannot be overstated.”

IUCN’s World Conservation Congress was launched in 1948 and takes place once every four years.