News & Events

Singapore Workshop Day 3 – Strategizing Conservation Efforts

by Rick Hudson on February 28, 2011

With all the country and trade reports as background information, and with the Red-listing behind us, the stage was finally set for the critical Day 3 of the workshop: designing specific priority conservation actions for the most threatened species. And though I am not at liberty to formally report the findings of the Red List workshop, I can tell you that the situation has worsened, in fact very considerably. The number of species recommended for the Critically Endangered rank (the next most serious rank is Extinct In The Wild) now stands at 38% of the 86 Asian species, a 90% increase since the 1999 Cambodia workshop!!

Participants were divided into four major working groups representing Southern Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), Southeast Asia Peninsula/Islands (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, PNG, Singapore and E. Timor), Southeast Asia Mainland (Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) and Northeast Asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan).

This was by far the most challenging of the four days and the work stretched on into the late afternoon. Each group was asked to address five primary themes that had emerged from the country reports – Trade / Enforcement, Captive Facilities (Assurance Colonies and Rescue Centers), in situ management, Awareness / Demand Reduction and Research. Within each of those categories, actions for the priority species were identified.

At the end of the day reports from each group were presented and discussed in a plenary session that will, in essence, comprise the “meat” of the final report. With only one hour left, the group then discussed the various changes to CITES listings that had been recommended during the previous day.