Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-13-Speech-2-176"
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"en.20040113.7.2-176"2
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".
Mr President, addressing the bushmeat crisis is of the utmost importance. As you know only too well, poaching and unsustainable levels of hunting threaten the existence of some of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom: the gorilla species, chimpanzees and other types of apes.
Furthermore, we are working at political level to address the bushmeat crisis. For example, we recently provided a EUR 500 000 grant to help launch the Africa Ministerial Process for Forest Law Enforcement and Governance. Although the primary objective of this process is to improve forest-sector governance and combat illegal logging, the inclusion of several important references to bushmeat and wildlife in the conference declaration will help to raise the profile of this issue.
We very much welcome the initiative of presenting this broad-based engagement on the part of the public to Parliament. This, in my view, is a very constructive way of giving this issue the attention it deserves.
This matter is clearly of concern to the general public, as nearly two million signatures to the petition suggest. It is also a matter of great concern to the Commission, in line with the global commitment to stop biodiversity loss by 2010. We therefore welcome the report from Mr De Rossa, which I find balanced and to the point.
We are working to address the issue in a number of different ways, but I must first emphasise the need to distinguish clearly between the bushmeat crisis – which threatens certain species of animals – and the everyday consumption of wild meat, which forms an essential part of food security for poor people in the developing world.
We are well aware that there are several aspects related to bushmeat which go beyond the development agenda; these include health issues in Europe, some trade issues as well as scientific issues. But since most over-exploitation of bushmeat takes place in developing countries, the best solution is to provide support for these countries through our development cooperation efforts and address the bushmeat crisis at its origin.
This crisis can be taken up in the context of natural resources, rural development or governance issues, or as a cross-cutting issue to be addressed
through Environmental Impact Assessments and Strategic Environmental Assessments. These assessments should identify risks and possible mitigation measures with respect to bushmeat for all development activities. In this respect, I am happy to inform you that the manual for ‘Integrating environment concerns into development and economic cooperation’ will be finalised and made operational during the first half of this year. The revised manual should go a long way to ensuring that proper attention is given to bushmeat issues in environmental assessments and therefore in all our relevant development activities. The mid-term reviews of our cooperation strategies this year will be used to strengthen the integration of environmental concerns, in particular through promoting a more systematic use of Country Environmental Profiles, Strategic Environmental Assessments and as previously mentioned, Environmental Impact Assessments. All this is fine; it may not constitute a very direct reaction but nonetheless provides the background necessary for proper consideration of the issue.
National ownership is very important. In fact, activities aimed at curbing over-exploitation of bushmeat mean
if the bushmeat countries themselves do not take the lead. We can help with appropriate support-building capacity and with injecting the views expressed when we are revising country strategies, but the ownership of the problem is crucial.
I would like to add a special point which is that peace is essential. If we look at the conflict in the DRC and in other countries in the region over the past 10 years, the reality is that these conflicts have been blocking any attempt to create even a minimum of governance in relation to the problem we are discussing. Soldiers and internally displaced people, refugees, have had no restriction, no incentive, no guidance, no punishment, no governance whatsoever on how to behave in this regard. It has been an area outside law and order and we have seen the terrible consequences. I would make this number one on the list of priorities and, in fact, I regard a peace dividend for the environment and for the bushmeat crisis as one of the many important aspects for securing peace in the DRC and elsewhere in the region.
The Commission is not convinced that a specific action plan would be the best way to address the bushmeat crisis, and this reflects what I said about ownership. Both the EC strategy for integrating environmental into economic and development cooperation and the Biodiversity Action Plan for development cooperation are being reviewed this year. It is preferable to ensure that bushmeat issues are properly addressed in these two strategies, rather than to put together a specific bushmeat strategy which would require a lot of resources in terms of staffing but may not necessarily lead to additional action to address the problem. Considering the multi-sectoral implications of the bushmeat issue, such an approach would not be the best one.
Many Community projects in East, South and West Africa take on this challenge in very practical terms. Although spending on the environment as a percentage of the total aid programme is quite low, we have invested considerably in environmental protection and management in key countries. For example, in Central Africa since 1992 the Commission has invested approximately EUR 67 million in the Ecofac programme for Central African forest ecosystems, which pilots innovative, protected-area management in crucial Great Ape habitats. The Commission is also funding work to control hunting and poaching in private forest concessions, and promoting eco-tourism in the region as part of its responsible management of the initiative."@en1
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