4 April 2014, IISD news - Following a meeting in Brussels, Belgium,  the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and  Flora (CITES) and Madagascar are calling for the halt of  illegal  trade in timber from Madagascar, namely rosewood, palisander and  ebony. Hery Marcial Rajaonarimampianina, President of Madagascar, and  Secretary-General John Scanlon, CITES, met in Brussels on 3 April to talk about  urgent actions to address the illegal timber trade. Recent reports point to  seizures of 110 tonnes of rosewood in Tanzania (through Operation Cobra II),  among others.

President Rajaonarimampianina noted that Madagascar's proposal to list its  populations of rosewood, palisander and ebony in CITES Appendix-II was agreed by  consensus at the 16th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP 16) to CITES.  While a number of national measures to tackle the illegal trade are underway, he  called for greater international support and cooperation, especially from  transit and destination countries. Secretary-General Scanlon added that all  concerned states should remain vigilant in ensuring the legality of all  CITES-listed timber shipments coming from Madagascar.

At the meeting, the CITES Secretary-General on behalf of the International  Consortium on Combatting Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) offered immediate support to  Madagascar through the Consortium and recommended the rapid deployment of a  Wildlife Incident Support Team (WIST), to be led by INTERPOL. WIST will guide  and facilitate appropriate follow-up law enforcement actions. ICCWC, through the  World Customs Organization (WCO), is also convening a meeting of Customs and  other officials from source, transit and destination states, to agree on joint  strategies to improve international cooperation and coordinated enforcement  responses to curb the trade in illegal timber from Madagascar. CITES also  offered the possibility of future assistance under the International Tropical  Timber Organization (ITTO)-CITES programme.

A CITES mission is due to visit Madagascar in late May 2014 to assist in the  implementation of the agreed activities.

Source: http://forests-l.iisd.org/news/cites-and-madagascar-call-for-support-to-stop-illegal-timber-trade/