UAE | Environment

Government officials trained to combat illegal wildlife trade in UAE

Government officials, including customs agents, have completed a training programme aimed at combating illegal wildlife trade in the UAE.

  • Staff Report
  • Published: 15:50 June 30, 2008
  • Gulf News

Abu Dhabi: Government officials, including customs agents, have completed a training programme aimed at combating illegal wildlife trade in the UAE.

Organised by the Emirates Wildlife Society-WWF (EWS-WWF), in partnership with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), the training programme helps customs officials in identification and confiscation of endangered wildlife species.

The three-year CITES project (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) came to a close with the production of CITES identification manuals in Arabic.

These manuals help Arabic-speaking government officials to identify species in order to tackle the illegal trade of wildlife.

The manuals are comprehensive, devoid of technical jargon and easy to understand.

The UAE CITES project, which began in 2002, has helped authorities succeed in capturing a wide variety of illegal specimens, such as shahtoosh shawls, ivory, live primates and wild cats to name a few.

Worldwide, wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars annually and includes hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimen from tens of thousands of species. It has recently been suggested that the global trade is estimated at more than $10 billion annually.

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