Canada Joins the International Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking

Thank you, John. Talk about a dear friend of endangered species. John Berry is the dearest. And we really appreciate your hosting us here today at the National Zoo for this really important announcement. We are especially indebted to the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo for all the work they do in wildlife conservation both through public education but I think most importantly by providing the basic scientific knowledge that we need to save so many endangered species in the wild. I'd like to welcome Minister Baird and our Canadian friends to Washington, DC. But most importantly l'd like to welcome them to the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking. Canada joins a global alliance that is dedicated to combating criminal activity that is, as John mentioned, driving many endangered species to the brink of extinction. The demand for exotic pets and rare skins and furs and traditional Chinese medicines are all undermining global efforts to protect endangered and threatened species. The illegal trade in wildlife may also contribute to many life threatening infectious diseases such as avian flu and SARS and our international cooperation to detect, tract and treat these diseases is really undermined by this illegal trade. And then, perhaps most importantly to some, in addition to the threat to extinction, wildlife trafficking is often really closely linked to other international organized crime activities. It involves some of the same offenders that engage in smuggling and trafficking in arms and drugs and people. So this is an attack against crime as well. Currently, by conservative estimates, there's a $10 billion annual trade in wildlife products on the black market. It's high profit, it's low risk and it's attracted the attention of many international criminal syndicates. The U.S. federal enforcement agencies, our customs officials, our fish and wildlife inspectors and many, many others work at our borders to curb this illegal trade and as good a job as they do it became very clear to us a couple of years ago that the U.S. could not stop this illegal trade all by itself. And so we knew we needed help. We went to our international friends and partners in the NGO community and industry and in other governments, conservation groups, a whole list of people which I'm going to read to you in a minute because it's a really impressive group. But what we decided we would do is form the coalition about a year and a half ago that had three goals: to improve wildlife enforcement by creating wildlife enforcement cooperation such as the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network that's recently been created in the Asia Area; also to reduce consumer demand for illegally traded wildlife through public awareness campaigns; and then perhaps most important and what we're demonstrating here today is to show high level political support for putting an end to wildlife trafficking and we've not only done that through our partner countries but we've also put it on the agenda of the G-8 environment ministers' meetings, the leaders' meeting and other international fora where these issues are discussed. But I need to mention -- John's mentioned some of the partners here. But we have 18 partners now and it's been a really long effort to get to this day to get our 19th but this is exciting for us so I want to just read the names of the partners. Australia, India, United Kingdom, the World Conservation Union, American Forest and Paper Association, the Cheetah Conservation Fund, Conservation International, Humane Society International, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Safe the Tiger Fund, the Smithsonian Institution, Traffic International, Wild Aid, the Wildlife Alliance, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund. So today we are very pleased to count Canada as our newest partner in this fight. The United States and Canada have a long history as neighbors working cooperatively on issues related to trade, security and energy among many others. We also share a commitment to good stewardship of the environment. For example, we cooperate closely under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to protect the 20 percent of the world's supply of fresh water contained in the Great Lakes. We collaborate through the Arctic Council for the conservation of flora and fauna, in climate change science and sustainable development in the North. And through the 1991 U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agreement, we continue to work together to improve air quality and reduce cross border air pollution. I look forward to this new stage in U.S.-Canadian environmental cooperation. With Canada as a member of the coalition against wildlife trafficking, we will build on the coalition's work to halt the loss of biodiversity by curbing both the supply and demand for wildlife and wildlife products. Like so many of our other joint efforts, we believe that with the U.S. and Canada working together we can make a real difference in this battle. Now I'd like to introduce the Honorable John Baird, Canada's Minister of the Environment. Minister Baird, we're so pleased to have you here today and we look forward to a long and productive working relationship with you. Thank you. (Applause.)