Kingdom+of+Spain's+Position+Paper+(1st+draft)

Committee: International Labor Organization Topic: Animal trafficking Country: Kingdom of Spain

There are about 30 million different species of plants and animals in the world. According to the International Union for the Nature Conservation, 1,000 of these species are endangered and 17,000 are threatened. In 2020, species diversity could be reduced a 33%. Plants and animals are threatened due to the alteration of their natural enviroments, which are used for building, roads, and so on. The illegal animal traffic is a very important cause of the threat and extinction of the flora and fauna. According to the World Fund for the Nature Conservation (WWT), it produces about 300,000 euros annually.The WWT says that this illegal business is one of the main causes of biodiversity loss in our planet. It also says that, currently, there are about 700 species in capture danger in natural enviroments. Recent studies have prooved the influence the European Union has in this business. The EU is the first importer in the world of reptile skins, and the second one of primates, after EEUU. In this context, Spain occupies an strategic position. On the one hand, Spain has a very rich fauna: brown bears, linxs, imperial eagles, and so on. This are very attractive victims for hunting or selling. On the other hand, the geogrphical situation of the country causes the use of it as link to import protected animals from Iberoamerica, Africa, other European countries and EEUU. Spain develops more than the 30% of the illegal animal trade in the world.

Due to this situation, the Nature Protection Service of the Civil Guard had to intervene in 2001 and 2002 and they found 39 mammals, 71 reptiles, 107 birds and 148 parts (ivory pieces, tortoise shells ...). They also found seven Tapoin monkeys, one of them dead. This organization says that the 70% of the trafficked animals die in the boxes or cages they are transported into. Several studies have prooved that 50,000 animals are taken out the country, but the internal traffic is increasing, too. The SOS Animal president, Susana del Carpio, said that the methods used with the captured animals are extremely cruel. Most of the times, trees are destroyed and hunters sometimes kill the creature's mother. She also said with deep concern that most of the birds die, but with one or two specimens, the hunters can do a succesfull business. Susana insisted on the modification of the 1333 Law, which defends the preservation of the natural resources, because there are not severe sanctions for the traffickers, although the fine for bringing animals illegaly to Spain is paid until 22,000 euros. For all these reasons, the national police has increased the vigilance in the borders of the country. However, since 1986 there haven't been created new rules in Spain related to animal trafficking that make easier the confiscation of speciments, making much more difficult the application of the rules which have already been created.

In 2002, about 1700 agents in Spain tried to stop animal trafficking by making sure the Treaty about the International Trade of Theatened Species is funfilled. This agreement was signed in Washington and was put into practice in July in 1975 and has been accepted in 145 countries. In January 1986, the treaty was signed in Spain and since then, for having an speciment of an endangered species it's necessary to have a document that declares the specimen has been bred in captivity but, according to the WWT, to falsify this document is not very difficult and, in some countries, this law is not efficent because they do not respect the national laws. Another reason of the expansion of the wild animal traffic is the growth of the Internet, through which you can find thousands of offers to buy endangered species. The Great Ape Project (el Proyecto Gran Simio) has prooved this fact. This project was founded in 1994 and it is an international organization of primatologists, anthropologists, ethicists and other experts who defend the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes that gives basic legal rights to chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans. These rights have been created to protect them, to give them individual freedom and for the prohibition of torture. Last 16th August an expedition of the Great Ape Project began in Madrid, the capital of Spain. The expedition's purpose was to protect the zones where groups of chimpanzees are found and it is formed by 10 volunteers whose leader is Paco Cuellar, the General Secretary of the Great Ape Project in Spain.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has knowledge of this situation and is going to try to solve the problem. He said: ``I will gather the 25 great businesses of the country in order to accelerate the recovery of the species.`` I hope he does so because the problem is more serious than it seems. Since the XVII century 60 species have disappeared and many more will do so if the situation does not change.

My conclusion is that each person in the world has to do everything they can to help with the solution of this problem because if we all cooperate together, we can get better results than if we try to do it by ourselves and we have to take into account that this problem affects to everybody because if the loss of biodiversity goes on like this, very soon many species will dissapear. This is a reality and not a hypothesis. This can and will happen if we don't do something now. My and my country's recommendations are: to increase the legal requirements for the sell and the purchase of exotic animals. The control must be more extense and efficent; to develop an specific law with budget for recovery centers of wild animals; to develop educational campaigns to make population (specially the young population) not to buy exotic animals; to develop more international cooperation programs to reduce national wild animal traffic in every country; to control the acquisition of species from zoos and circuses; to limit the captivity growth of wild animals and develop conservation programs for wild animals in their natural enviroments and, finally, to include the concept of respect to wild and domestic animals in the educational projects for the enviromental education to make aware and motivate youth.

The websites from which I have obtained the information to do this position paper are: [] [] [] [] [] [] []