The second joint meeting of the Animals and Plants Committees of the Conference of the Parties to CITES took place from 7 to 9 December 2000 in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, United States of America. The only purpose of the meeting was to consider the report of the Criteria Working Group (CWG), which had met in Canberra, Australia, in early August this year, as well as the comments received from nine Parties and only one organization, IWMC World Conservation Trust. In addition to the members of the two Committees, about 100 representatives of Parties and governmental and non-governmental organizations participated in the discussions and considered the amendments to Resolution Conf. 9.24 on Criteria for Amendment of Appendices I and II proposed by the CWG.

  All along the meeting, a split between those generally in favour of the proposed amendments and those opposed to most of them was clearly apparent. Although this was not expressly stated, except by the Japanese delegation, the split was in fact between those who saw the amendments as an attempt to facilitate the transfer of species from Appendix I to Appendix II and as obstacles to the listing of commercially fished species, and those who saw them in general as improvements to the current criteria.

  No decision was taken at the joint meeting, except perhaps that a new draft of the revised Resolution Conf. 9.24, to be prepared by the Chairmen of the Animals and Plants Committees, on the basis of the earlier comments and of those expressed during the meeting, will be subject to a wide circulation for further comments to Parties and international organizations. This new consultation should take place in April-May 2001, after a new meeting of the CWG to consider, in particular, the definitions, notes and guidelines included in Annex 5 to Resolution Conf. 9.24.�