Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana and other Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) member states are ready to present their position at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Conference (CITES CoP20) penciled for Geneva, Switzerland next year.
This was revealed by Vice President Mr Slumber Tsogwane in an interview at the end of the week-long KAZA Heads of State summit in Livingstone, Zambia on Saturday.
The summit’s resolutions included, among others, consideration of options available within and outside CITES including diplomatic engagement, withdrawal, reservations, arbitration and trading with non-CITES parties to benefit from wildlife and wildlife products.
At the meeting, KAZA partner states were urged to fully prepare and participate at the upcoming dialogue meeting planned for August in Botswana, including holding of at least two preparatory meetings to develop a Regional Common Position for CITES CoP20.
Member states were also urged to expedite operationalisation of the SADC CITES Engagement Strategy 2022-2026 to better defend conservation, sustainable use and socio-economic development interests of the region at CITES meeting.
Mr Tsogwane said he was impressed by the level of support government received from the regional partners in their conservation efforts.
“Botswana is doing extremely well in terms of some conservation polices and confident of timely implementation as some are recently passed in Parliament,” he said.
In 2022, the European Parliament announced plans to introduce a ban on the import of wildlife trophies. Conservationists were concerned that continued hunting would deplete wildlife populations which were declining due to loss of habitat and poaching.
Botswana has the world’s largest elephant population and as part of conservation management embarked on controlled trophy hunting.
Government has lobbied against the proposed import ban and has already presented its case to the United Nations Environment Assembly.
Minister of Environment and Tourism, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu had also addressed some British legislators, their Lordships from the House of Lords, peers and other stakeholders at the House of Commons to lobby against the British Parliament passing the Import Prohibition Bill.
Mr Tsogwane was also upbeat about KAZA’s tourism destination brand which was unveiled during the summit.
The new identity aims to collectively market the tourist destination which would benefit member states, including Botswana, with a contribution of 30 per cent of the KAZA area.
He said such would transform regional tourism.
The summit called on KAZA members to consider joining the KAZA-UNIVISA system and immediately implement the KAZA Destination Brand.
The summit further noted the need to establish a mechanism for engagement by communities in the tourism value chain which needed to be reviewed to enable improved financial and non-financial benefits from the industry and diversify tourism products on offer at the in-country and trans-boundary scale.
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