CITES COP15 OUTREACH ON U.S. SPECIES PROPOSALS

UNCLAS ADDIS ABABA 000235 SIPDIS DEPT FOR OES/PCI SPERLING and GERDIN, OES/ENRC GAMBLE, OES/ETC, OES/FO, OES/ENV, AF/E DEPT FOR AID/EGAT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV EAID AMGT ET KPAO ECON TBIO AEGR ETRD PGOV SUBJECT: CITES COP15 OUTREACH ON U.S. SPECIES PROPOSALS REF: STATE 00006668 ¶1. (U) Regional Environment Officer (REO) and Regional Environment Assistant (REA) delivered referenced demarche to Dr. Kifle Argaw, Director of the Ethiopia Wildlife Conservation Authority (EWCA),and Dr. Ludwig Sieg, Chief Technical Advisor on GTZ-GEF EWCA capacity building project on Thursday, February 4, 2010. Both expressed appreciation for the detailed background regarding the U.S. proposals to CITES CoP 15. ¶2. (U) Dr. Kifle noted that Ethiopia's position is still under formulation, but that traditionally Ethiopia generally does not take a position on issues that do not impact the country. It is therefore likely that Ethiopia will ultimately take a neutral (abstention) or CITES position regarding the shark, coral, polar bear and bobcat proposals. Dr. Sieg, a German national with extensive background in CITES work as a consultant, mentioned as an aside that it his understanding that Germany support the two proposals to list six shark species in Appendix II. ¶3. (U) Dr. Kifle took the opportunity of the REO and REA visit to expand upon Ethiopia's position on Elephants which matches the Elephant Coalition CITES Appendix proposal. With a population of approximately 1,000 elephants residing on Ethiopian territory, and additional migratory populations crossing borders with Sudan, Ethiopia sees this as their primary focus at CoP 15 in Qatar. Dr. Kifle emphasized that Ethiopia supports the 9 year moratorium on ivory sales and does not wish to see this opened for discussion. If it is opened, Ethiopia supports the Kenya-backed Proposal 6. #YATES