News

The EU will now more strictly regulate importation of these rugs

Today, we received a phone call from the office of Jean Lambert (MEP, UK Green Party), who had earlier put a written question to the EU Commissioner for Environment concerning a cessation of importation of canned lion hunting trophies.

Commissioner Potocnik did not specifically address the canned lion hunting trophy imports but replied as follows:

“The African lion is covered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and Council Regulation (EC) No 338/97(1) on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora by regulating trade therein. The Commission considers that this regime is NOT (capitalization mine) sufficient to address concerns over the trade in lion hunting trophies. As a result, the Commission has initiated a revision of EU rules through amendments to Commission Regulation (EC) No 865/2006(2) on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora by regulating trade therein which would go BEYOND (capitalization mine) CITES requirements for import of hunting trophies of a number of species into the EU, including lions. On that basis, and in cases where there are concerns about the sustainability of lion hunting in certain exporting countries, those new rules would give the possibility to the Commission to SUSPEND IMPORTS OF LION HUNTING TROPHIES INTO THE EU (capitalization mine).”

This is the strongest message to date that the EU, under its independent Wildlife Trade Regulations, is now willing to take a stronger stance than CITES regarding trade in lion hunting trophies. It could well imply that the EU is now willing to consider the source of lion trophies on a case by case basis, and suspend such imports as required.

This is very welcome news, and we thank Jean Lambert (fortunately returned to the EU Parliament in recent elections) for taking this initiative.

We will liaise further with Jean to urge her to urge speedy ratification of new EU trade regulations concerning lions.

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