COLOMBO, April 2019: Sri Lanka hopes to use a top international biodiversity trade summit it’s hosting in May to shine a global spotlight on the island’s unique biodiversity.
The 18th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP18) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is scheduled to be held from May 23 to June 3 in Colombo.
The Conference of Parties meeting will bring in nearly 4,000 delegates from 183 countries to discuss CITES international biodiversity trade policies, propose vital amendments, review action plans, and address implementation concerns, said John Amaratunge, the minister of tourism and wildlife conservation.
“It’s a good opportunity to draw global attention to the island’s unique biodiversity and to contribute to the global discussion on biodiversity conservation and trade,” he told mongabay.com, the world’s most popular rainforest information site and a well-known source of environmental news reporting and analysis. “Biodiversity is a key driver of Sri Lanka’s tourism sector with national parks being huge revenue spinners. Famed for elephants, leopards, birds and reptiles, there is renewed interest in Sri Lanka’s wildlife in the aftermath of war and the visitors are increasing in number, as there is complete access to protected areas now.”
In October 2018, travel guide Lonely Planet listed Sri Lanka as the top destination for tourists in 2019, a decade after the end of a 26-year civil war.
“The war did not affect protected areas in a big way during the years of violent conflict but some locations in the island’s north and east remained inaccessible for years. Now visitors can have access to all of them,” Amaratunge said.
Sri Lanka is the first South Asian country to host a meeting of the World Wildlife Conference, as the CITES summit is popularly known.
“We have a reputation for species conservation and for avoiding questionable biodiversity trade,” said Samantha Gunasekera, director of the Colombo-based CITES CoP18 Secretariat.
Gunasekera said it was equally important to drum up support for the complete implementation of conservation-related domestic laws. “We look for full implementation of national regulations before the year ends, as per commitments made under the CITES Convention.”
The CITES meetings are generally held every three years, when trade rules relating to flora and fauna are reviewed and amendments are proposed for future conservation. Sri Lanka has submitted a joint proposal with the United States to protect tiger spiders, a genus of tarantulas native to Sri Lanka and India.
