VZCZCXYZ0010
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBS #0159/01 0401814
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 091814Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 9998

UNCLAS BRUSSELS 000159 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR OES/ENRC L.GAMBLE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV KSCA CITES AORC UNEP BE
SUBJECT: BELGIUM: RESPONSE TO CITES COP-15 OUTREACH ON U.S. SPECIES 
PROPOSALS 
 
REF: STATE 6668 
 
SUMMARY 
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¶1.  Economic officers delivered reftel points on February 5 to 
Georges Evrard, Amelie Knapp and Miet van Looy, Belgium's Animal 
Welfare and CITES Team at the Belgian Federal Public Service 
Department of Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment.  Evrard 
will lead the Belgian delegation of experts to the Doha meetings, 
although the Belgian ambassador in Qatar will be the official head 
of delegation.  Contact information for Evrard and the rest of the 
Belgian delegation members is in paragraph 7.   Belgium has yet to 
arrive at a final position on the U.S. submissions, and of course 
will need to harmonize its position within the European Union (EU), 
which will be meeting on February 16 to prepare positions for the 
Doha meetings.  The officials said the hammerhead sharks proposal 
was particularly strong and well argued, that the coral proposal was 
also proactive in confronting criticism coming into the conference, 
and that increased regulation on the snake trade was a good idea. 
They said the oceanic whitetip shark and bobcat proposals raised 
some questions due to underdeveloped look-alike standards, and they 
were curious what was behind the U.S. proposal to de-list the 
Bobcat.  On polar bears, they had been studying the proposal 
carefully, were still undecided, but believed more data would be 
necessary before moving the species up to Appendix I; they were 
unsure about the link between the decline in numbers and trade, 
which CITES addresses.  They thought the snake proposal was 
worthwhile.   End summary. 
 
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Sharks 
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¶2. The team noted that the proposal for the four hammerhead shark 
species was very well written and strong.  They were supportive of 
the proposal to move the hammerhead shark species to Appendix II and 
said that the EU is generally favorable to shark proposals. 
However, they were less sure about the oceanic whitetip proposal, 
which they said would be strengthened by a more in-depth look-alike 
comparison that goes beyond fin color to differentiate between other 
shark species.  They mentioned the Food and Agriculture Organization 
(FAO) had an issue with look-alikes. 
 
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Coral 
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¶3. The Belgians said that since the EU is doing a joint proposal on 
corals, they were favorable to the proposal.  They also mentioned 
that the proposal was good at confronting earlier criticisms and 
wondered if the U.S. had done outreach in order to identify and 
respond to these criticisms in preparation for CoP-15. 
 
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Polar Bear 
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¶4. They said moving the polar bear from Appendix II to Appendix I is 
something undecided on an EU level, and that they themselves were 
still undecided on a Belgian position.  The team cited climate 
change as the main problem facing polar bears, saying more 
information was needed to see if trade has a large impact on the 
species with respect to climate.  Also, they underlined that the 
species is very widespread and that there is good management of the 
species, such as the MoU between Canada and Greenland.  They said 
they would listen closely to the positions of range states on this 
issue. 
 
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Bobcat 
------ 
 
¶5. The team said that they did not fully understand the USG's motion 
to delete the bobcat species from CITES Appendix II in the first 
place, and asked whether more clarification could be provided as to 
why this proposal was being made, and what the benefit of it would 
be (i.e., reduction of administration burden).  They wondered 
whether states or industry lobbies could be pushing it, for example. 
 They said the issue was sensitive because they need to ensure that 
it would not impact European populations of the lynx genus, such as 
the Iberian lynx, which is very threatened.  They also stated that 
the ID guides for the bobcat, while good, were still of limited 
value because they do not take into account such things as varying 
colors within species and don't appear to consider other species 
outside the lynx genus.  They also thought that the guide lacked 
instruction needed to identify the lynxes without more concrete 
identifiers like the head and tail. 
 
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Snake 
 
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¶6. Belgium is supportive of the snake workshop; the experts said it 
was not controversial, and support was more likely because funding 
would be provided by the U.S 
 
Delegation information 
---------------------- 
 
¶7.  Dr Georges Evrard, head of delegation, general advisor to DG 
Animals, Plants and Food Service Bien-etre Animal and CITES, 
Georges.Evrard@health.fgov.be, tel.(32) 2 524 74 00. 
 
Amelie Knapp, scientific advisor, Service Bien-etre Animal and 
CITES, Amelie.knapp@health.fgov.be, tel (32) 2 524 74 25.; she is 
responsible for all the listing proposals including Bobcat, Corals, 
Sharks and also on snake trade. 
 
Ms. Miet Van Looy, Miet.VanLooy@health.fgov.be 
Frans Arijs, Frans.Arijs@health.fgov.be 
(to be confirmed) Dr Philippe Jouk (Antwerp Zoo), 
philippe.jouk@zooantwerpen.be 
GUTMAN