Conventions and Policies
Recent Achievements
Sustainable Utilisation of Plant Resources (2001-2005)
Reliable identification is key to successful implementation of Conventions such as CITES. International trade in medicinal plants is growing and this group is particularly hard to identify due to the trade in parts and derivatives. The development of a chemical fingerprinting procedure for the identification of the different species of ginseng in international trade has proved to be a useful tool.
The trade in animal parts and derivatives for traditional medicine is high profile and any methods that can reduce that trade are of great importance. To address this threat plants that could be used as substitutes for Tiger bone, Bear bile and Rhino horn were studied in the Jodrell Laboratory.
Conservation and Environmental Monitoring (2001-2005)
This five year period saw a heavy work load in briefing and supporting the UK Government and the European Union in international meetings, especially as this period included a UK Presidency of the 25 member European Union. Among the highlights, we supported the UK government as a member of the national and EU delegations at two meetings of the CBD Conference of the Parties, two CITES Conference of the Parties, four CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice meetings, three meetings of the CBD Access and Benefit-Sharing Working Group, seventeen meetings of the EU CITES Scientific Review Group, ten meetings of the EU CITES Enforcement Working Group, and we led the UK delegation at five meetings of the CITES Plants Committee. The Head of CAPS is now the only individual to have attended all meetings of the CITES Plants Committee since its inception.
Key CBD issues where we supplied support for the UK government included initiatives on access and benefit-sharing, Drylands Programme of Work, Technology Transfer and Co-operation, Mountain Biodiversity Programme of Work, the Global Taxonomy Initiative and the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.
Supporting Kew research and partnerships we negotiated and agreed 55 agreements with 28 countries. We developed a range of new standard agreement documents and revised the Kew Access and Benefit-Sharing Policy. We also organised an Access and Benefit-Sharing workshop at the BGCI International Conservation Congress. To help inform the debate in the CBD arena we produced a case study on the practicality, feasibility and cost of certificates of origin for scientific research material for CBD Working Group on Access and Benefit-Sharing.
To ensure that all Kew staff are fully briefed on access requirements we integrated CAPS procedures in the Overseas Fieldwork Committee review of applications for overseas expeditions and travel. We also integrated CAPS procedures in the application for and implementation of Kew Darwin Initiative proposals. With HPE we established a Kew position on alien invasive species, helped establish the internal Alien Invasives Working Group, contributed to the UK Review of Non-Native Species Policy and the Defra Horticultural Code of Practice.
Capacity building at institutional, national and international level was a priority. We trained 453 CITES enforcement officers from the UK and abroad, 372 Kew staff across all departments on CBD, CITES and Plant Health procedures, and 487 higher education students on CITES and CBD. This makes over 1,300 individuals in total. In addition we had Mr Yu Yongfu from CITES China seconded to CAPS for a six month period to research trade and prepare training material to be used on his return to China. We also prepared CITES timber implementation and enforcement packs and distributed these to all UK ports of entry, and carried out training at key ports of entry.
We supported participation of an African delegate in the CITES Plants Committee, AETFAT meeting and the CITES CBD International Masters Course in Baeza, Spain and helped support a CITES training workshop in Poland. The establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding on capacity building with the CITES Secretariat help form a framework for our CITES capacity building work and ensured that we complemented work being done by the CITES Secretariat and other Parties. The preparation and publication of a DNA Banking Manual with South African partners – a Darwin Initiative project, helped set a template for this work in Africa.