AFRICAN INDABA

The 60th CIC General Assembly, which is organized in collaboration of the Czech, the Slovak and the Hungarian Delegations of the CIC, will take place in Prague and Bratislava and Budapest from 28 to 30 April 2013.

The motto of this General Assembly is: “Hunting: Conserving Wildlife - Key to Global Cultural Heritage”

African topics that will be discussed are the escalating poaching crisis and resolutions on age-based lion hunting and the opening of legal and CITES-supervised trade in rhino horn. See http://www.cic2013.com/en/

1     IUCN SSC Guiding Principles on Trophy Hunting available in Chinese, German, Portuguese, Russian & Spanish

The recently adopted Guiding Principles on Trophy Hunting of IUCN's Species Survival Commission (SSC) are available now in Chinese, German, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish languages. The translated versions can be found under the following link: http://cms.iucn.org/about/work/programmes/species/publications/iucn_guidelines_and__policy__statements/

The original English version has been translated by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) in close coordination with IUCN SSC. French and Italian translations are under way.

CIC President Bernard Lozé had welcomed the Guiding Principles as another political milestone of IUCN in the field of the sustainable use of natural resources. He introduced the CIC translations now and said: "The aim is for these Guiding Principles to be widely used by IUCN members, Governments and others for policy and management decisions related to trophy hunting. They will be useful for instance in legislation, the design of new trophy hunting programs or the review of existing ones. Therefore it was necessary to make them available in important international languages, not only English. I am particularly happy to have them in Chinese and Russian. Hunters, scientists and politicians from these countries now have access to this important international guideline on hunting."

The IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) is a science-based network of more than 7,500 volunteer experts from almost every country in the world, all working together towards conserving biodiversity. The majority of members are deployed in more than 120 Specialist Groups, Red List Authorities and Task Forces.

The IUCN, of which the CIC is a member, has long recognized that the wise and sustainable use of wildlife can be consistent with and contribute to its conservation, because the social and economic benefits derived from the use of species can provide incentives for people to conserve them and their habitats. This document can therefore build on existing IUCN policies. Trophy hunting is seen as a tool which can be used to create incentives for the conservation of species and their habitats and for the equitable sharing of the benefits associated with the use of natural resources. The Principles highlight that species which are rare or threatened may be included in trophy hunting as part of site-specific conservation strategies.  The original English text of the Guiding Principles can be found here:

 https://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_ssc_guiding_principles_on_trophy_hunting_ver1_09aug2012.pdf