GWP NEWSLETTER | JANUARY 2020
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Dear GWP Friends and Colleagues,
We wish you a very happy new year and hope that 2020—referred to as the "biodiversity super year"—brings to the forefront the urgency of combating illegal wildlife trade and saving our threatened species as key international meetings are planned to set the tone and agenda for environmental action.
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As we look back at 2019, we are deeply saddened and still shocked by the loss of our friend, mentor and program leader Claudia Sobrevila who unexpectedly passed away on July 31, 2019. Claudia brought light, joy and passion to wildlife conservation, she championed communities and indigenous people’s rights, she fought hard to be optimistic in a world that’s filled with negativity, and she triumphed in every task that she took on. Claudia believed that by increasing societies’ understanding of the need to care for and nurture the environment we create a powerful movement toward peace.
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Claudia's absence was felt as we wrapped up last year with
the GWP's third annual conference in Pretoria and Kruger National Park in South Africa
where the GWP partnered with the government of South Africa to bring together over 100 practitioners to discuss the opportunities and challenges related to investing in a wildlife-based economy. We are thankful to the project team of South Africa for their hospitality. You can view
the agenda
here.
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We continue to build our partnerships, and i
n our
Partners at Work
section below we highlight the UNDP-led maritime trafficking grant activities and training workshops as well as a workshop led by the ADB and the government of the Philippines
on wildlife and forest crimes indicators held in the Philippines along with a seminar on machine learning to track online illegal wildlife trade in the country.
As the team prepares for the second phase of the GWP, we would like to emphasize that your comments and feedback on our program’s activities are always welcome. Please reach out to us
here
.
Wishing you all a wonderful start to the new year and much success in your endeavors throughout the coming year,
The GWP Team
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GWP featured at the GEF's Civil Society Consultation Meeting on Combatting Illegal Wildlife Trade
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Throughout the week posters about the GWP lit up the World Bank atrium with information on how the program is working to reduce poaching, trafficking, and demand across three continents. In addition, GWP videos were screened on the atrium's jumbotron, which drew a wide audience from within the World Bank and from meeting participants.
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GWP donor roundtable discussion at CITES COP18
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At the 18th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (
CITES CoP18
) held mid-August in Geneva, Switzerland, the GWP held a donor roundtable to present our IWT
donor coordination activities
, including the donor engagement platform, data exchange,
case studies
to capture data and assess investment outputs/outcomes, and periodic meetings to take stock on initiatives, funding programs, and upcoming events. Recommendations and next steps were also presented.
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Our roundtable panel included
:
- Jürgen Friedrich, Policy Officer, International Environmental Issues, German Ministry for the Environment
- Dr. Cheryl Case, Deputy Director, United Kingdom DEFRA
- Jorge Rodriguez-Romero, Deputy Head of Unit, DG Environment, European Commission
- Pamela Scruggs, Chief, Division of Management Authority, USFWS
- Andy Tobiason, Biodiversity Conservation Advisor, USAID
- Rebecca Ng, Program Officer, Vulcan Inc.
- Ivonne Higuero, Secretary General, CITES
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How are donor funds being used to combat IWT?
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With funding from Germany, we also created "
story maps
" with vivid photos, videos and maps that take you inside 10 donor projects.
* Use the "filter by" function to narrow down results by donor, geography, type of product (case studies/story maps) and intervention category.
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The real costs of illegal logging, fishing and wildlife trade: $1 trillion–$2 trillion per year
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This
new report
from the GWP tallies the annual cost of these illegal activities at a staggering $1 trillion to $2 trillion. More than 90 percent of these losses are from ecosystem services that forests, wildlife and coastal resources provide that are not currently priced by the market, such as carbon storage, biodiversity, water filtration, and flood retention.
Greater investments and strong political commitment are needed to address the systemic corruption and weak governance across the public and private sectors that enable this illegal trade. The report provides a road map to help countries strengthen their capacity to address these crimes and elevate efforts to protect their natural resources.
Benoît Blarel, World Bank Practice Manager for Global Platforms, Environment, Natural Resources & Blue Economy, authored
a blog
that discusses the report's findings and why it's crucial to work together to fight these illegal activities and document the true value of natural resources through natural capital accounting.
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When Good Conservation Becomes Good Economics: Kenya's Vanishing Herds
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Wildlife, the principal asset of Kenya’s tourism industry, is in rapid decline. In the past three decades, the country has lost nearly 70% of its wildlife.
The evidence presented in this report, produced with support from the GWP, the GEF and the World Bank, suggests there are wide opportunities to stop the dramatic collapse of wildlife populations and that investing in the tourism sector yields significant benefits which are especially pro-poor. The most pressing need is for planners to incorporate the tools in this report and elsewhere to consider the long-term implications of irreversible decisions and harness the full potential the country’s natural endowment offers.
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UNDP-led maritime trafficking grant activities and training workshops
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Financed by the GEF and implemented by the UNDP between 2018 and 2021, the
Reducing Maritime Trafficking of Wildlife between Africa and Asia
project under the GWP aims to curb maritime wildlife trafficking, targeting key routes and transit points between Africa and Asia.
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In July 2019, a port stakeholder workshop on Countering Wildlife Trafficking Through Tanzania’s Seaports was conducted in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, attended by 57 participations.
A follow up workshop was conducted in Mombasa, Kenya, from October 23-25, 2019 with 75 participants. Additionally, a Program Coordination Unit has been established in Zanzibar in partnership with
UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme (CCP)
, and a certified course for port-based stakeholders (Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers) is under development and cargo targeting/risk assessment systems are being piloted.
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The GWP Philippines’ illegal wildlife trade project
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Workshop on Wildlife and Forest Crimes Indicators
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Are our institutions ready to respond to wildlife and forest crimes? This is the key question law enforcement agents and legal practitioners sought to answer during a two-day workshop attended by more than 60 participants from national and regional agencies, organized by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Biodiversity Management Bureau (DENR-BMB), with support from the UNODC and the GWP Philippines project.
Held October 17-18, 2019, in Quezon City, the “Orientation-Workshop on the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) Wildlife and Forest Crimes
Indicator Framework
” aimed to measure the effectiveness of the country’s preventive and criminal justice responses to illegal wildlife trade—an increasingly organized and sophisticated crime involving large numbers of wildlife led by syndicates within and outside the Philippines.
The results of the assessment are expected to help enhance the Wildlife Law Enforcement Action Plan (WildLEAP), the country’s roadmap for a strengthened, sustained, and well-coordinated program on wildlife law enforcement, and provide valuable inputs to the National Environmental Law Enforcement or NELE Summit scheduled in March 2020.
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Seminar on machine learning to track online illegal wildlife trade
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As the trade of illegal wildlife continues to migrate to social media and to other digital platforms, enforcement agencies will need to adapt to address the continuing proliferation of cybercrime. The good news is that social media provides a wealth of data that is easily accessible, and with the right tools and know-how, it can allow enforcement agents to track illegal wildlife crimes and other activities that will help the wildlife conservation efforts of the country.
The GWP Philippines project organized a seminar on “Environmental Conservation in the Digital Age” for representatives of member-agencies of the National Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee- Sub-committee on Environment and Natural Resources and more than 150 students from De La Salle University and Ateneo de Manila University on November 26–27, 2019. Dr. Enrico di Minin, an Adjunct Professor from the University of Helsinki and one of the leading experts in the world in using social media for environmental conservation spoke at the event. The success of the seminars indicated there is a further need for more workshops and trainings with regards to cybercrime in the Philippines.
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Replay GWP's Virtual Knowledge Events
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NEW! You can now replay
over 20 GWP webinars
on our website
here
!
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Our latest knowledge events:
November 2019:
October 2019:
September 2019:
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To receive regular updates about virtual events, please email:
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Economic Impact of Global Wildlife Tourism:
Travel & Tourism as an Economic Tool for the Protection of Wildlife
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While the travel and tourism sector accounts for 10.4% of global GDP, wildlife tourism
represents 3.9% of this figure, or nearly $344 billion—equivalent to the entire GDP of South Africa or Hong Kong. Travel and tourism can play a tremendous role in combating illegal trade in wildlife—wildlife tourism represents over five times the value of the illegal wildlife trade.
This report by the
World Travel & Tourism
Council provides an estimate of the global economic contribution of wildlife tourism, quantifying the importance of wildlife tourism to build greater awareness of its value and showcase the need for protection among policymakers and government budget holders.
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Follow the GWP on Twitter via @WBG_Environment
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Subscribe to the GWP Newsletter
here
GWP Program Video:
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