Special Edition

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Instead of that, the Secretariat would have been better-advised in reminding Committee I that it would be ultra vires to exempt "whole artificially propagated plants in pots or other small containers, each consignment being accompanied by a label or document stating the name of the taxon or taxa and the text 'artificially propagated'". Indeed, the Convention does not allow any exemption for whole plants, whether they are wild-collected or artificially propagated. As indicated in summary report CoP13 Com. I Rep. 10, this exemption, related to Taxus species, was surprisingly suggested by the Netherlands, on behalf of the 25 Member States of the European Community. It was approved by Committee I. This occurred apparently without any reaction from any Party, observer or member of the Secretariat (two botanists were present). We could have reacted but we must admit that we were not in the room when this happened. It is only after the meeting that we discovered this error. This was in fact shortly before taking note of Notification to the Parties No. 2004/073 of 19 November, in which the Secretariat has judiciously inserted a footnote to point out the error and indicate that it will submit the issue to the Standing Committee. Regarding the footnote however, the Secretariat could have added that the specimens in question could be traded in a way similar to the 'exemption', on the condition that the required document (this would not be applicable to the label) would be a phytosanitary certificate issued in accordance with Resolution Conf. 12.3, section VII.

If the Secretariat failed to properly advise the Parties on the above issue and has now to propose a way to repair the error made, we must note also that it provided them a wrong advice in the final plenary session regarding the amendment introduced by the United States for proposal CoP13 Prop. 40 (see document CoP13 Plen.5). "The Secretariat pointed out that proposal CoP13 Prop. 42, which proposed an amendment of footnote 8 for Phalaenopsis, had been withdrawn and therefore could not be reconsidered, [this was correct] and so the proposed amendment by the delegation of the United States would be in contradiction with an existing footnote." This last comment obviously implied that the amendment, in the Secretariat's opinion, was not receivable regarding Phalaenopsis spp. Fortunately, the Conference did not take this erroneous comment into consideration and adopted proposal CoP13 Prop. 40, as amended by the delegation of the United States.

To conclude, we consider regrettable that the Secretariat has tried in various ways to impose its views on a significant issue, without appropriate consideration of the potential consequences for the Parties and, as importantly, for the conservation of CITES listed species, and was unable to properly and timely advise the Conference. In the first case, fortunately, the Parties did not follow the Secretariat's views; they were nevertheless pushed to adopt measures that are probably too strict. Regarding the second issue, we do hope, Mr Secretary General, that the Standing Committee will be able to correct the error.

Yours faithfully,

Jaques Berney
IWMC Executive Vice-President