Arusha - Green Customs Initiative

A delegate from Ethiopia informed that his country is preparing its Principal Environmental
Legislation that will take into account her obligations under various MEAs to which the
country is a Party.
A delegate from Kenya asked for the nature of intervention to be taken under the auspices of
CITES when one country donates wildlife to another country. Ms Mrema explained that
donations would fall under exemptions subsequent to abiding by proper procedures. Further,
another delegate from Kenya asked as to why CITES focuses specifically on wildlife and what
ought to be done when a particular national policy endangers wildlife such as de-gazetting a
national park and handing over to an incompetent authority. Ms. Mrema clarified that the
decision for CITES to focus solely on wildlife was reached by Parties the Convention on the
basis of the existing challenges in the wildlife sector and the need for an international
instrument to monitor and regulate the same. Further, she described that the case refers to
internal transactions and for that matter national legislation will need to be referred and not
CITES which solely deals with trans-boundary trade in wildlife.
A delegate from Uganda raised concerns on conflicting scope between CITES and the Lusaka
Agreement. In response, Ms Mrema pointed out that CITES allows Parties to adopt stricter
bilateral, regional or sub-regional Agreements to conserve endangered wild flora and fauna.
On the other hand, Lusaka Agreement deals with illegal trade of wildlife in the East and
Southern Africa sub-region and it is worth noting that the Lusaka Agreement Task Force is
comprised of seconded Field Officers from the respective National Bureaus who retains their
enforcement power as they can go to the field to combat illegal trade. She described this to be
a distinctive institutional setting when compared to other Secretariats of MEAs which rely
more on information exchange with National Focal Points.
With reference to implementation of CITES, a delegate from Kenya raised concerns on the
responsibility for the disposal of seized specimens. Ms Mrema confirmed that there has been
such concerns of confiscated specimens before and after adoption of CITES and Parties
agreed on procedures to deal with such concerns. Mr. Kisamo representing the Lusaka
Agreement Task Force revealed that both CITES and the Lusaka Agreement is silent on the
return of seized specimen to the country of origin. In this regard, he stressed that action to be
taken has to rely on the national legislation and urged countries to promote community
involvement in wildlife conservation as this may help to minimize illegal trade.
A delegate from Kenya asked for clarification on how tracking of ODS is actually done. In
response, Dr. Bankobeza explained the tracking being referred is not in the context of physical
tracking but rather in terms of documentation to track movement of ODS from the point of
export to the point of import so as at least to minimize potential for illegal trade.
A delegate from Tanzania asked for a universal definition of waste in view of the significant
amount of second-hand refrigerators and other items exported to developing countries which
rather reflect the used items are simply meant for dumping into the developing countries. Dr.
Bankobeza acknowledged the lack of such a universal definition.
A delegate from Uganda wanted to know the size of the ozone hole and what is likely to
happen to the hole after total phase out of ODS by the year 2010. To add to that, another
delegate from Rwanda asked as to how long does it take for the ozone layer to full recovery.
Dr. Bankobeza clarified that the size of the ozone hole is significantly big in size and referred
to measurements made in September 1998, which revealed the ozone hole measuring 25
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