France and the Principality of Monaco have contributed funding to the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) – a collaborative effort of the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Bank and the World Customs organisation – to strengthen criminal justice systems and frontline efforts to combat wildlife crime.
France’s contribution of €85,000 for activities in 2017 and Monaco’s promise of €200,000 over the next four years are the first of a number of pledges received from CITES Parties at CoP17 in Johannesburg in 2016 and at the Hanoi Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade, also in 2016, to support and further facilitate the efforts underway by the Consortium.
“Thanks to the generous financial contributions from France and the Principality of Monaco, ICCWC will be able to enhance its support to range, transit and destination countries affected by illicit wildlife trafficking,” said John E. Scanlon, CITES Secretary-General, adding the funding from the two countries “makes an important contribution to enabling ICCWC to deliver support and capacity building to step up the fight against wildlife crime”.
ICCWC fights international wildlife crime at different levels: nationally, regionally and internationally. “This cross-cutting initiative has already demonstrated its effectiveness in the development and provision of indispensable tools for states in law enforcement and criminal justice as well as in social and economic fields”, said Gilles Tonelli, Monaco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
“For these reasons, the Principality of Monaco recognises ICCWC as an essential mean to achieve the sustainable development goals.”