The WCO participated in the recent CITES National Ivory Action Plan (NIAP) Meeting held in Maputo, Mozambique, from 1 to 4 May 2018.
On this occasion, as one of the five intergovernmental member organizations making up the International Consortium on Combatting Illegal Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), the WCO (i) delivered a presentation on the role of Customs Risk Management in support of Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) enforcement operations and NIAPs; (ii) facilitated a session, in support of INTERPOL, relating to criminal prosecutions; and (iii) led the discussions by a working group dealing with cross-border and international cooperation issues.
CITES NIAPs are practical tools under the CITES Convention, used by a number of its Member states to strengthen their controls on the ivory trade and markets, and to help them combat the illegal trade in ivory. These NIAPs are developed in compliance with recommendations made by the CITES Standing Committee. Each Plan outlines the urgent measures that a CITES Party commits to delivering – including legislative, enforcement and public awareness actions – along with specified implementation time-frames and milestones.
While the Plans follow a common structure of actions with time-frames and milestones, each NIAP is unique. A Plan should identify the actions that are of highest priority for a particular Party to help combat the illegal ivory trade, depending upon the Party’s own circumstances including its capacity-building needs, available resources, and the scale and nature of the illegal trade, and whether the Party is a source, transit or destination country for illegally acquired ivory.