 My name is Jennifer Crook, I direct the Africa program here at CSIS and I just want to say a big thank you to you all for joining us today for what I think should be a very important and informative event. This is an issue while life trafficking and poaching in Sub-Saharan Africa that the CSIS Africa program has long wanted to get smarter on and delve into and we're extremely grateful to the Wood Tiger Fund and to Andrew Curry who's here some place today for making this happen and allowing us to bring such a great group of speakers and experts, regional, government officials, practitioners in the field, senators and policy makers. So we're very grateful for that help. This is an issue that has multiple dimensions and multiple and far reaching dimensions. It is a global problem that's going to require a global and multidisciplinary approach. Today we're largely looking at the kind of ramifications and implications in Africa, the responses in Africa, although we know that this is a much bigger global issue. This impacts on communities, regions, security forces and of course the impact on elephant and rhino populations that are being rapidly depleted and in some cases risk being extinguished entirely. So today I think our aim is to highlight the many dimensions of the challenges and the connections between them and more important I think is to talk about and examine and assess some of the promising innovation and strategies that groups, some of whom are represented here are working on to address the problem. I think there are new networks, new technologies, new partnerships that are happening on the ground at that whole promise and that are worth profiling and supporting going forward. After today's session we're going to put out a brief report highlighting some of the takeaways of today's event. The event will be live webcast today and it will be posted further, it will remain on the web going forward in a couple of days. It should be up there and I hope that this is the first of many more sessions here at CSIS that look at the various dimensions of this in greater depth but we couldn't have a better group of people to set this up than we do today. So I want to thank our participants, particularly those who are coming a very long way, Cabinet Secretary Judy Wakungu from the Kenya Secretary for Environment, Water and Natural Resources, Senator Dado from Tana River State, we have Johan Jus from Kruger Park, Ian Sanders from Saavo, Jean-Marc Framon of African Parks, Enrico Pignereau, all of whom have traveled a great way to be with us today so thank you. And finally I'd like to thank and recognize Derek Schlick-Eisen who has worked incredibly hard to bring all these participants together and make this happen and to our staff Ben Huebner, Ngozi Orlegeti, Haile Arzaz and Justin Gradyk for all their hard work. I'm going to turn now to the Speaker of the Hour. It is a great honor to introduce Senator Jeff Flake. He is being a very important voice and leader on this issue. Senator Flake has served as U.S. Senator from Arizona since 2013 after serving in the House of Representatives for 12 years. He's chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa where he has been a real forward-looking active champion for U.S. Africa policy on a whole range of issues and has been extremely important in elevating issues that may not get the kind of attention they want. Senator Flake has a long and abiding interest in Africa. He served on a mission in Southern Africa prior to graduating from college. He returned to the continent as executive director for the foundation for democracy in Namibia. That was at a really crucial, fascinating time in Namibia. Going forward in his focus in the legislation reflects that kind of abiding interest. Very much focused on how this impacts African communities, how you can engage African communities and African partners, really get at the source and the people who feel the most immediate impact and who ultimately have to play a huge part in the solution. So Senator Flake, welcome. I know you're going to talk a little bit about your hearing tomorrow or bring that up. We're delighted to have you to launch this event. And again, thank you for your leadership on the wildlife trafficking issue. Thanks. Thank you. Well, thank you, Jennifer. Really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have to excuse myself a little later. We have somebody with a temerity to negotiate a nuclear deal this week, and it's kind of thrown everything into a tizzy on Capitol Hill, and so it's a very busy time there that I hope to be able to take a few questions afterwards. I really appreciate being here. I also want to give a special thanks to Dan Ash, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Ambassador Luis Ariaga from the State Department and the rest of the panelists who will be here today. We'll be hearing also from Ed Royce later. Ed has some legislation that we'll certainly be taking up in the Senate as well later. So I appreciate the good work that's done here at CSIS. I've always been a fan of CSIS and the work that you've done, particularly in Africa. Back when I started here in Washington, I was an intern in the office of Senator Dennis DeConcini, the senator who preceded Senator Kyle, and I followed Senator Kyle. But during that time, I came as an intern to a couple of the functions that were held at CSIS and then also worked with CSIS on Namibia and other African issues at that time. But as you as was mentioned, we have a hearing going on tomorrow in the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, and some of the panelists who are speaking today here will also be speaking there tomorrow. So I appreciate being able to use some of them there. I, as mentioned, my history with Africa goes back a ways. My first introduction to Africa was when I was just a kid in the 70s. We had a, I grew up on a dry, dusty ranch in Northern Arizona with 10 brothers and sisters. And we had a consultant, a ranch consultant who had come and go out with my father and his brothers on the F-bar where I grew up. And he happened to be from Rhodesia, a former, one of us now is in Bobway. And he was a game warden there at that time. His name was Alan Savry. He's become pretty well known in some communities. But he talked about, as we kids were around, he was telling us about Africa. We were just fascinated. He said that they used to fly their planes so low that giraffes would look down on them. And as a kid, I just, I mean, that was it. I was hooked. And I just thought that that was the neatest thing, the stories he would tell about Southern Africa and the wildlife there. I then received a mission call from the Mormon Church to go to South Africa and Zimbabwe. And spent two years down there. And then later, as mentioned, I was able to go to the country of Namibia in 1989, the one-year transition period, where Namibia received its independence. And for a budding political junkie, that was Nirvana, to be there when a country has its first elections and drafts its constitution. But I also really enjoyed being in Namibia, going up to Atosha, and also over to, well, up to the Okavango Delta, and also over to Chobi and elsewhere, and on the Zambezi River as well, the Caprivi Strip, some of my favorite places in Africa. On one occasion, I took a group up, and we were in Rundu, just on the Okavango River in the border of Namibia and Angola. And we, on that occasion, we'd flown there and just a little, had a bush pilot take us up there, and we were floating down the river about 10 miles to our lodge, where we were to stay for the evening. And we were a little overloaded on this little makeshift boat that we had. And about a couple hours in, it was already dark, about 10 o'clock in the evening, or 11 o'clock. And I just remember our pilot there saying, if it were light, you would see a bend in the river coming up. There's about 100 yards wide at that point. There's a bend, and the crocodiles sun themselves every day out there on the rocks, and this river had a lot of crocs and hippos. And just then, he reached back and pulled the cord to start the engine. We'd been just kind of drifting for a while. The engine had kept overheating, and it pulled the back of the boat down and swamped it, and we sank. We sank right in the middle of the river in the middle of the night. And fortunately, we had a good sense to swim toward Namibia instead of Angola. There was a bit of conflict still going on in Angola at that time. But that was quite an experience. It was the only time I've ever wished there was probably less wildlife in Africa than there is. But we did make it to shore, and then had to walk about a mile down to our lodge along the banks of the river. And so it was quite an experience that I didn't tell my wife about for a while after that. She probably wouldn't have let me go on such adventures. But I've always appreciated Africa, and I've come to appreciate more in this position as well. The impact that poaching is having not just on the wildlife population, but on local communities in Africa. And I know that's the subject of what we'll talk about tomorrow and a lot of what you'll talk about today. We in the United States want to see Sub-Saharan African countries prosper. But we know that nobody wants to see this more than the Africans themselves. This is evidence by the, you know, in the transformation we've seen a lot of these countries undergo in the past decades to reconcile their past and move on to a brighter future. You know, whether it's fostering stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the Central African Republic or realizing the full economic potential of Tanzania or Kenya, there's certainly a lot of work yet to be done. I hope to be traveling with the President actually next week to Kenya and Ethiopia. But many internal factors contribute to some of the ongoing challenges. But the external demand for elephant tusk and rhino horn certainly compounds one critical challenge many of these countries are struggling to address. And while the poaching of African wildlife, it satisfies Asian demand, it's certainly an African problem. And sadly, the problem threatens much of the progress that's been made over the continent over the past several years. Many of these countries have made great strides toward good government, but certainly corruption still persists in some countries. And according to the State Department, illicit wildlife trafficking generates as much as $8 billion to $10 billion annually. That's a significant amount of money, and that kind of profit obviously contempt many government officials or others who don't receive a sizable government paycheck to participate. Poaching also threatens international security. Questions remain whether trafficking of wildlife aids the drug trade or along with the drug trade aids various armed entities. There's evidence to suggest that that is the case, and it's certainly taking its toll on security at the local level. Traffickers are responsible for killing park rangers and other law enforcement officials that are tasked with protecting wildlife and communities. Poaching also threatens many fledgling economies, as we know. Wildlife tourism is one of the most lucrative sectors of many African economies, especially in East and Southern Africa. And hunters from around the world will pay tens of thousands of dollars to hunt big game in Africa, but far more important according to a study of the United Nations Tourism Organization. Wildlife watching tourism represents about 80 percent of the total annual sales for trips to Africa. Elephants and rhinos are obviously some of the most popular with tourists, and they're the ones most threatened by poachers. According to the African Wildlife Foundation, poachers kill more than 100 elephants across the continent every day. Experts also say that rhino horn is now more valuable than gold or than cocaine, and it certainly makes rhinos a walking treasure trove for poachers. To put this in perspective, in 2009, 122 rhinos were poached in South Africa. Last year, 2014, that number was up to over 1,200 in a single year in a single country. The longer a poaching persists, the fewer tourists there will be, and it will take a significant toll on the economies of affected countries. Communities are threatened by traffickers who seek to recruit Africans from low-paying jobs with the promise of a larger payoff. Our efforts are underway to reduce demand for illicit wildlife, particularly in Asia. As we've seen, however, demand reduction alone is not sufficient to stem poaching. It's certainly important, but probably not sufficient. Poaching needs to be addressed on the ground where it happens as well. We hope to address some of these things tomorrow in the hearing. We'll examine some of the best practices for fighting poaching on the ground. Now, the President released a national strategy for combating wildlife trafficking a year and a half ago. Resources are being expended to help affected African countries stamp out poaching, and we need to make sure that these approaches are consistent with some of the best practices, as I mentioned, and that they have the maximum possible effect. Again, I appreciate what many of you in this room are doing, and certainly for the role that CSIS is playing. Look forward to any questions you might have, and again, thank you for what you're doing. I'm sorry. It has to be so short. This morning, you have much more important panelists to listen to throughout the day, so thank you for having me here. Thank you so much, Senator Flake, for that really great start to the morning. I know that you have the hearing tomorrow. I wonder if you might say, and I'll just take the prerogative of the first question here, if you might say a little bit on kind of the differing perspectives within Congress on the issue. In other words, are there kind of points of debate or discussion on the legislation or where legislation is how one issue is prioritized over another within the trafficking, the couple of trafficking bills up now? Well, gratefully, in Congress, the African issues don't tend to be as partisan, gratefully, as many of the issues in Washington right now. That's certainly a good thing. And so it's not that you have real partisan differences on these approaches. If you do, perhaps it's levels of spending and how much we commit and also, obviously, all of us want to have oversight and to make sure that we're using best practices and we look at what works. If there is kind of a schism, perhaps it's where do we focus our time? Is it simply on reducing demand in Asia? Is that the best use of time and resources? I know there are a lot of good organizations working and doing some good work in that area. Is it the financing angle? Do we look at clamping down there? Is it the community-based efforts? And my guess is it's going to be a combination of all of them, but there will be some difference of opinion on how much and where we focus resources in that regard. Great. Great. And what's striking is how complimentary some of the legislation are, that together they capture the full range of issues. The challenge will be, as you say, balancing them, I think. Maybe we'll get some perspectives on that today. Let's take a couple of questions. We'll take three. The lady there. Go back. Tony. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and Dr. Flake. Thank you so much for your wonderful work and supporting Africa and responding to my letter, which I had sent you on our call and supporting our call to be passed. Thank you so much. My question and comment is, Senator Flake, now that you are here, Africa, is there so much opportunity looking at what we want to do with the poaching? How do we, Africa needs more funding on poaching because without funding and working with the local people, so when you go for hearing and that's what you should put emphasis on, we need support in poaching and animals in Africa. How do we do that? You are here and you've just talked about it. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you. I hope you'll be able to attend the hearing. There has been a commitment, as I mentioned, the president at his program that he announced just last year executive order, but I believe State Department USAID have requested $28 million to combat wild life trafficking, and this is in addition to $113.9 million in biodiversity funding, so that we are committing resources here and hopefully what we want to make sure is that those resources are spent wisely and that particularly community-based efforts that we look at best practices and look at what has worked in certain countries and what works one place may not work in another, but hopefully we can find out what's working best and assist rather than try to impose some proposal that we think looks good but simply won't work on the ground. Thanks. Tony. We're being webcast. Thank you, Senator. I'm just wondering what is being done on the demand side. We're doing a lot on interdiction of poaching, but are we doing enough in trying to curtail the demand and really having a serious discussion with the largest market for these poached goods, which is in China. Right. Certainly, China and Southeast Asia as well, that's where the market really is. I know there are some organizations that I've met with that are some nonprofits that are doing that. I think some well-known figures, Bo Derek, is involved in that effort and they've raised some pretty good money to do that and have Yao Ming and others participate. I think that's important. I think that's wonderful, and as we continue on this topic, we'll have hearings specifically on that issue, but like I said, I don't think there's any one solution here, but that's a biggie because as long as the demand is there, we've seen it on the drug side here. You can do all you want in Colombia in terms of trying to stamp out the production, but as long as the demand is here, it finds a way, and I think the same is true to a large extent with Ivory and Rhino Horn. So that's certainly, and I think we can talk to those nonprofits who have already been in this area for a while and see where they have had success or where you can quantified up, sorry, what's going on and follow with resources. I think that's an area where Juan Zarate, who's a senior advisor to our program, we've talked about bringing in our East Asia program to try to get at that issue as well. We have a gentleman over here, we'll take maybe two more, I think. A gentleman here? Senator, I have a question on direct action against poachers. With our increased involvement with AFRICOM and their acquisition of sensor data, what's the thought on sharing that sensor data with host nations so that we can interdict the poachers? You know, that's a good thought. I'll have to take that up with the committee and also with AFRICOM. Obviously where we have information that can be shared and used for other purposes, there are good purposes we ought to use it, so I would certainly favor that. Obviously AFRICOM has a mission to increase security in African countries and increase our own security, but increasing security often means increasing the economic security in some of these countries and that would help. So if we have information that can be helpful, I would certainly favor using it. So good point. Sure. An embarrassment of riches, I'm getting two mics at once. Thank you very much. I have a question that follows up on the demand side. Where is the U.S. on the demand side of illegal ivory and rhino horn? I've read that we're not far behind China. We may even be ahead of China. The penalties in the U.S. for trafficking in these commodities is very light as we've seen when people are found in New York and so on. But I'm not sure. I'm not an expert on this, so I'd be interested in your information on that. I'm certain that some of the panelists later can give a much better answer than I can, but my understanding is that certainly there is some demand in some illicit trade here that is dwarfed by demand in Asia. And so we certainly have better ways to track and to prosecute. It may be that we need to adjust the penalties, and we'll look at that. But I'd certainly look to the panelists today who have studied that closely, but my understanding is and what we're basing our policy on certainly is that the demand side in Asia is really eclipsed as everything else. I appreciate being here. It's back to nuke, so I'm afraid. And so thank you again for having me here, and thank you for what you're doing, and look forward to seeing some of you at the hearing tomorrow. Thank you. We're going to turn to our next panel. Our great challenge will be staying on time today because we have a very packed agenda. So I'm going to turn over to Juan Zarate, who's a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, senior security analyst for CBS, and has served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism. We're missing Kirsten and Enrico. And Juan, I'll turn over to you. Yes, I need a pleasure to meet you. Good morning, everybody. Hope everyone's doing well. Keep in mind we're being recorded, so be on your best behavior. My name is Juan Zarate. I'm a senior advisor here. I want to thank Jennifer Cook and Derek and the entire AFCA program here at CSIS for organizing this incredibly important event, which I think reflects the growing sense and appreciation for the complexity, importance, and challenge of the poaching issues, not just in Africa, but globally. I'm honored to be a part of this, even though I'm not an Africa expert, in part because my prior service in government and current work focuses on transnational threats and the nature and the blending of those threats globally. The opportunities that militant groups, criminal organizations, even terrorist groups have in conflict zones, the advantage that they take over economies, both local, regional, and globally. The illicit financing that is attached to those networks and activities, and frankly, the local, regional, and global threats to not just governance and sustainable economies, but also to security. And I think there's a growing recognition, not just in the communities that we're all a part of, but also in popular culture that this is an issue. I've also been fortunate to be associated with Katherine Bigelow, who is one of the celebrities who's taken this as an issue and really begun to focus on raising awareness around the threat to our natural security as well as our national security when talking about poaching and the threats that we collectively face. Katherine produced a film called Last Days of Ivory, which has received some attention, and I think has blended well with a lot of the celebrity attention that's being brought to these issues. And so that's the context. Obviously much attention, this conference reflects that, but what we have today in this morning to set the table for our discussion are four of the most important policy officials and experts on this crisis. And in particular, we wanted to talk this morning about the growth and opportunities in the policy realm, because of course to be able to deal with these issues, you need strategy, you need policy, you need resources, you need global cooperation, and you need some novel approaches and perhaps new networks to be applied to the challenges and problems. And so with us today, let me just quickly introduce you, have the bios in front of you, and for those of you watching online or who will be watching, you can find this online. We have, again, four of the preeminent experts. Dan Ash, to my far left, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was a key official from a policy and execution standpoint for the U.S. government on these issues. Ambassador Luis Adiaga, who is the principal deputy assistant secretary for INL, which is, for those of you who don't know the State Department, the Bureau that deals with all of the international narcotics and law enforcement issues globally, may have the fourth largest air force in the U.S. government, if I understand correctly, and quite an important policy role in position. Kirsten Sachs, the senior biodiversity policy advisor for the Bureau of Africa at USAID has had numerous roles in this space, looking at not just the environment, but also policy implications broadly for USAID and the government. And of course, AID has a critical role to play in Africa and around the world. And then finally, to my immediate left, Enrico Peronio, who's the Africa Wildlife and Protected Areas Specialist from the European Commission. And we're really grateful, Enrico, for you to be here, because this obviously is not just an African issue, not just an American issue, but a global issue. And the European Union has a key role to play in that the European Commission has been leading on some of the policy innovations and awareness building in Europe and around the world. So with that, let me just explain the logistics. I'm going to ask each of the panelists to present very briefly for about 10 minutes. Some of them have slide presentations. We have the screens up to be able to use the slide decks. Then I'm going to ask a couple questions after those presentations, and then we'll open it up to all of you afterward. We'll start with Dan and then just move down the line and really look forward to this conversation. Thank you again. Thank you, Juan. Would you prefer we speak from here or from the podium? However you're comfortable. I think this is fine though. OK. All right. Well, good morning, everybody. I am Dan Ash, the director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. And it's a delight to be here with you this morning. And I guess in Juan's introduction, it was I gave up the mantle of expert a long time ago, and especially expert on Africa, although I did go there for two weeks in May and June. But so my perspective in this issue is one of a leader of one of the organizations that is at the tip of the spear for the United States. And I think it's important in this context to talk about the projection of leadership as the key ingredient in the response by the United States to this epidemic of wildlife trafficking. And as we think about that, I would first draw your attention to the president's executive order on wildlife trafficking. As a more than 30 year veteran of Washington, DC, it's easy to be cynical about things like executive orders. But I will tell you in the past year I have been renewed. My faith in an act, a bold act of leadership has been renewed because we have been joined by the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Department, USAID, the Defense Department, and many others in this all-of-government approach that we now have to address wildlife trafficking. So that statement of leadership has been and will continue to be a key ingredient in our response nationally and internationally. I see that same then continuum and projection of leadership as Secretary Sally Jewell went to Vietnam and China just this month, specifically on the subject of wildlife trafficking, the first Secretary of the Interior to ever take such a step and stand hand in hand in China with US Ambassador Max Baucus speaking directly to the Chinese government about key issues of law enforcement and intelligence, and particularly about demand reduction and how the US and China can join hands, not as competitors, but as partners in the endeavor to deal with demand. We saw the same projection of leadership through the US State Department and with our partners in government when the Chinese came here several weeks ago for the strategic and economic dialogue. Again, key leaders in government talking face-to-face across the table about how we can cooperate together as the world's two most prominent leaders and most prominent consumers of illegal and legal wildlife products. We see that leadership in the United States Congress, and it is refreshing to have someone of the character and influence of Senator Flake here to speak to us about this subject. And we see that same leadership with Chairman Ed Royce and his colleagues in the US House of Representatives in moving HR 2494 to combat global wildlife trafficking. We see that with Dianne Feinstein and Senator Lindsey Thomas in the Senate introducing a predicate offense legislation, which is incorporated in Chairman Royce's bill as well, which will be the key new tool for us in combating wildlife trafficking with the goal to take what is now a low-risk, high-profit endeavor and turn it around, reverse that polarity. So we have a venture that is high-risk and low-profit. And that predicate offense legislation will be a key new tool in our arsenal, again, bringing together the work of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and particularly the Department of Justice to bring these people to justice and eliminate the opportunities for financial gain that are really driving this trafficking epidemic. We are good at catching poachers. In the short term, we need to be better at catching poachers to stop the killing in the short term. But in the long term, they just make more poachers. What we need to do is go after the people who are reaping the financial rewards of this trafficking epidemic. That projection of leadership extends down to an organization like the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, where by the end of this year, we will have law enforcement agents stationed in US embassies in China, in Vietnam, in Tanzania, in Botswana, and in Lima, Peru. By this time next year, I would hope to have another five agents deployed so that we can begin to gather the intelligence that is necessary to take the war to the people, again, who are making the profit and make it a more risky venture for them. This is a new venture for us, something that we have never done before. But we think it will be one of the linchpins for us in this effort. We are expanding and focusing our efforts in international cooperation and capacity building. And Richard Regirio will address those, I believe, on the next panel. We are trying to take the nation, again, with the encouragement of the President's executive order to eliminate the United States' role as a source of demand for products, particularly like ivory. And so we have now taken two measures to tighten the movement and sale of ivory domestically here in the United States. We will shortly announce our third leg of that stool, and we will virtually eliminate all domestic trade in ivory in the United States. Again, putting us in the position of leading by example so that when we go to China, when we speak with Vietnam and we speak with Thailand, we're speaking from a position of leadership that the US is doing the hard work of strictly limiting its domestic markets in ivory. I think that we also need to realize that as we deal with this issue, that it involves much bigger pressures. And in my brief trip to Africa, I saw the optimism of leadership and commitment in a country like Gabon. And I felt the desperation of corruption in a country like Tanzania, where these issues are seemingly intractable. But the most powerful part of that trip for me in a way was the trip the last day, the drive across Dar es Salaam to go to the airport. My wife was traveling with me, and we're in the crush of traffic in Dar es Salaam. It took us two hours to get from the embassy to the airport. And this just continual crush of people coming up to the car trying to sell us trinkets, young women holding babies into the window of the car, asking for money or to sell their wares. And after, again, two weeks in Gabon and Tanzania and seeing many kind of magnificent sites, my wife looked at me across the car and said, if you were one of those people and somebody asked you or told you that if you kill that elephant, I will give you a year or two years worth of income, would you kill that elephant? And in the moment of pause before I could say anything, she said, I would. And so we have to realize that what we are dealing with is a global struggle for sustainability, and that unless we can deal with the bigger issues of population expansion and poverty, we will forever struggle with the issue of wildlife trafficking. So thank you for your commitment, and thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. Thank you, Dan. Luis, how about it? OK, thank you. Well, thank you so much, Juan, for that kind introduction and for inviting me to join this very distinguished panel. I can assure you I am not worthy. But I'm going to try. It's always a pleasure to join forces with other stakeholders on efforts to fight wildlife trafficking. The fact is that we're all here dealing with the consequences of criminals across the globe getting involved in wildlife trafficking. We think that there are three fundamental reasons for this, and I think some of them have been mentioned. Number one, there is a very low risk of detection and prosecution. And even if you are detected and prosecuted, the fines are very small and the jail sentences are very light. And thirdly, of course, there is the high rewards that come from getting engaged in that activity. It's already been mentioned that rhino horn is worth more than gold and cocaine. The Department of State is engaged in efforts to stop this wildlife trade. We are, in fact, one of the three co-chairs of the White House Task Force on wildlife trafficking. The other two co-chairs are the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior. The office I represent, the Bureau of International Architects and Law Enforcement Affairs, has over 30 years experience in strengthening civilian security and justice institutions around the globe. And what we're doing now is trying to bring all of that experience into the wildlife trafficking area. This didn't happen until around four years ago. Our efforts then are part of the president's national strategy and implementation plan to combat wildlife trafficking. And we are focused on three main areas. Number one, we're trying to leverage bilateral and multilateral diplomatic tools to strengthen international cooperation. Number two, we're supporting cross-border law enforcement cooperation among transit, source, and destination countries. And number three, we are trying to build the capacity of criminal justice systems to confront this crime. Let me then give you a number of examples of the things we have accomplished in recent months. In terms of building international support, we have worked with other partner countries, especially in Peru, in the United Nations Economic and Social Council to encourage all 193 members to define wildlife trafficking as a serious crime in line with the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. You must say, okay, so what? What does that really mean? Two issues. Number one, because we have accomplished this, nowadays criminals who are liable, who are caught and convicted are liable to serve significantly heavier penalties than they were before. Number two, the designation of serious crime unlocks certain provisions of the Convention that facilitate greater international cooperation, such as the use of mutual legal assistance, assets, seizure and forfeiture, and other instruments that will help us hold the criminals accountable for these crimes. Another example, at the recent UN Crime Congress, an event in Doha that brought together about 3,000 government, civil society and academic experts to discuss criminal crime, the member states who participated reached a consensus that recognized wildlife trafficking as a quote, new and emerging form of crime in the final declaration. What this really means is that that declaration is the basis for the UN Crime Commission to conduct this work in the coming five years. This means there will be more international programs aimed at fighting wildlife trafficking. We're also partnering with the International Consortium of Combating Wildlife Crime, some of you may know it as ICWIC, by providing $5 billion over the last two years to deliver training and capacity building to nearly 30 countries and about 700 justice officials. We're also using regional mechanisms. In December, we funded the creation of the ASEAN Legal Task Force for Wildlife, which is a group that is developing a legal handbook, a toolkit and training courses for government officials in ASEAN. The objective is to make these officials aware some of the legal tools that are available to go after poachers and traffickers. We also supported Thailand's proposal to ASEAN to include wildlife trafficking as a new priority area, and we hope that ASEAN ministers will approve that proposal at their next meeting. We're partnering with international organizations, such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes. That office, for example, in January and February, conducted training for 90 prosecutors from Laos. We're also co-funding projects that help develop new and unique tools and technology to combat wildlife trafficking. For example, like the UNODC World Bank Forensic DNA analysis of major ivory seizures. This is work that is led by Dr. Sam Wasser at the University of Washington. The analysis has identified some very specific poaching hotspots. We used to think that the hotspots were all over the place, but they are much fewer than what we thought. And we're also learning that organized criminal groups tend to consolidate shipments in container ports out of East Africa and some out of West Africa. Those shipments sometimes follow some common transit path throughout Southeast Asia to their destination countries in the region. So we hope that this knowledge will help us shape our strategy and disrupt the criminal networks by finding those pressure points along the ivory trafficking path. The results, by the way of this study, were recently published in the Journal of Science. Now, this is a very small glimpse at some of the work that the State Department is doing in this area. Our ultimate objective is to have a world where these iconic species are protected and no longer on the verge of extinction. To achieve this, we are committed to remain our efforts to strengthen international law enforcement cooperation and to continue to strengthen the consensus around a very simple and clear concept that wildlife trafficking is a serious crime and that we must work together to address it. Thank you very much. Luis, very helpful summary and survey. I'm gonna come back to a couple of issues you raised. Kirsten, next to you. Set on? Yes. Great. So Juan, thank you very much for the introduction. Everybody else has added a disclaimer, so here goes mine. So I work for the U.S. Agency for International Development. That said, I'm only a few weeks on the job, but I actually come from the conservation world, the NGO world. So for the last 12 years, I worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society and with the Wildlife Conservation Society oversaw all of our work in Central Africa. And a large part of that portfolio was actually U.S. government funded. So I feel very, very comfortable having done a lot of the implementation on the ground, working with USAID funds and U.S. Fish and Wildlife funds about speaking about what's happening actually on the ground. So very quickly, next slide, please. I wanted to talk a little bit about why is a development agency interested in this? And specifically biodiversity is the foundation for development. So we have about greater than 1.6 billion people who depend on forests for their livelihoods and greater than 2.6 billion people who depend on fisheries. So ecosystem services, of course, benefit everyone. So wildlife crime is a development issue. It is something that undermines security, law and order, and it undermines years and years of development gains. Next slide. So USAID's approach is very much a comprehensive approach to combating wildlife trafficking, mainly focusing on 25 countries, the budget and about $50 million on combating wildlife trafficking. And this is on top of the 250 million that goes into biodiversity work. USAID is positioned to really have deliver on these issues in the sense that it has a long-term presence on the ground through all of the USAID missions across Africa. A vast geographic presence not only because of the missions, but we work with a large array of NGO implementing partners on the ground. And because it is a government agency, as Dan was saying, it has the ability to get a convening power. It can talk government to government and it can interact at the policy level in addition to helping on the boots on the ground. Next slide. I wanted to quickly just bring up this slide. We know the problem. We know what's happening with elephants on the ground. But why this slide is important, because it wasn't until US government started investing highly in the Central Africa and in the Congolation Rain Force that the NGO partners with funding from USAID and funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service actually collected these vast data sets to show what was finally going on on the ground. We knew we had a poaching crisis in East Africa, Southern Africa. We could see dead elephants on the ground, much harder to see under the canopy. And so it was these data sets that were pulled together that actually showed us what was going on the ground. And next slide. It showed that we actually had a 76% decline in elephant populations over the last decade. So what is USAID doing on the ground to kind of combat this? Next slide. The main solutions I kind of think in three categories. So there's the anti-poaching, the law enforcement work on the ground. There's then the anti-trafficking and combating trafficking work. And then there's the demand reduction. So very quickly, this is another example from Central Africa, where USAID is working in areas where communities have no land tenure, but working with communities to develop government structures, to develop land use plans, and by so doing, transferring management to communities, increasing their capacity for natural resource management, which end up in ecosystems which are better managed, and also communities that have use of land tenure. So this then actually leads to civility and also security within these areas. Next slide. Similarly, in East Africa, wow, that's dark, you have a situation where USAID has been supporting the Northern Langerland Trusts in Kenya. It's 27 conservancies managing about 8 million acres of land. And here you see when you get trained eco-guards on the ground communicating not only amongst themselves, but also with the Kenya Wildlife Service, you have a higher levels of security and stability, and that's what the people actually appreciate, and that you have wildlife populations that are doing much better than the surrounding lands. Similarly, next slide in Namibia. Very, very long-term presence, USAID has funded community conservancies in Namibia for the last 13 years, and these have actually done very well in terms of increasing the livelihoods of the local people, increasing their ability to actually manage the lands in which they're living, and there's been the added benefit of the wildlife populations actually doing much better because there is this presence on the ground. Next slide. So kind of the next large area of intervention on the ground is actually working with the private sector, engaging with the private sector. As I mentioned, USAID has a very large network of NGO partners on the ground, and working through the NGO partners, a lot of these protected areas in which they're working are surrounded by logging concessions. The vast majority in Central Africa actually is concessioned, so USAID and its partners have helped the concessions to actually become FSC certified, so we can have 20,000 square miles which are certified in the Congo Basin, and this, of course, is great for the concessions because they actually can then access these markets that give them premium prices on their products, and it's great for wildlife because it actually makes them implement best practices in terms of combating wildlife trafficking. Next slide. This is the area where USAID is spending the vast majority of its money, really working with partners on the ground to develop stronger protected areas. If you could click to the next slide. As devastating as that data that I showed you at the very beginning were that we lost 76% of the elephants in the last decade, these data also gave us a glimpse of what is the actual solution, where you have eco-guards on the ground, we have seven times more elephants than where we don't, so the anti-poaching is absolutely critical, so USAID is investing heavily on working with governments to increase their ability to manage their protected areas, and just within the last year, so in 2014, USAID has funded approximately 1,000 individuals to be further trained in law enforcement, and this has actually led to the arrests of about 500 poachers on the ground. Next slide. Also, monitoring and accountability and knowing what's going on in these protected areas is absolutely key. USAID has focused a lot of time and attention in rolling out SMART, which is a law enforcement monitoring tool. In the last couple of years, three major workshops in East Africa, South Africa, and Central Africa to help roll out the SMART tool across the network of protected areas and community areas in which people are working. It's really crucial that this tool be used because it really helps increase the efficacy and the efficiency of law enforcement on the ground. Next slide. This is a slide showing Gabon National Parks. People will talk about that today, and it shows where SMART data are being collected in these national parks. You can see exactly where the patrol is when. It shows patrol coverage, it shows patrol effort, and it shows where the poaching pressure is. So it allows managers very, very quickly to see where they need to invest in certain protected areas, and also it shows the headquarters where they need to use their very limited conservation resources in terms of where they can actually are the biggest problems and where they can highlight successes. So not only is this working on at the protected area level, but with U.S. government support, the government of Gabon has rolled out this across the nation as a national system. Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, we're working on that now, and Tanzania will be coming in next to roll out SMART across all of its protected areas. Next slide. So now if we start looking then at the trafficking aspects, one of the things, and this is again an example from Central Africa that USAID has invested in, is working to increase, improve and strengthen the criminal justice system, working through the EGLE network on the ground in the Republic of Congo, and now also in DRC. So these projects, the EGLE projects, work to increase the efficacy in the application of the law by training jurists, and it also works to look at novel approaches on ways to deal with corruption. Next slide. Legal reforms, this is an area where again, because the U.S. AID is a government agency, we can work on a government to government level and work and help them develop legal frameworks to support and wildlife combatting wildlife trafficking on the ground. So I think a nice example here is in 2014, the government of Mozambique developed new conservation law which actually criminalizes all wildlife trafficking and the U.S. government was working with this on them at the same time, coming in this comprehensive approach of working on the ground in the most important areas for wildlife to help get the boots on the ground, the law enforcement on the ground. Next slide. International cooperation, as my colleagues have mentioned, is absolutely crucial. USAID engages a lot in the border areas through its partners and through working with USAID and Fish and Wildlife. There's been support in the border areas, for example, of Northern Republic of Congo, Cameroon and CAR to make sure that there is transboundary patrols in these areas so that wildlife criminals cannot just escape across borders. The same in the border lands of Tanzania and Kenya. Next slide. And one of the other solutions that USAID is investing quite a bit of time and money on is increasing detection. I think some of the best examples here are, for example, in Asia where the, as Louise, I believe, mentioned, support to the Asian Wildlife Enforcement Network, the Asian WEN, and in this capacity, the US government and the ID has actually funded the training of about 8,500 law enforcement officials on wildlife training, and this has actually had resulted in a tenfold increase of confiscations of wildlife products. And then in China, for example, where USAID has a flagship program called Arrest, they are working there to reduce the online sale of ivory and it's been a 90% reduction in the online ivory options due to this program. And then finally, the example you see here, man's best friend, Sniffer Dogs, incredibly effective on the ground. USAID has supported Sniffer Dogs in Kazakhstan, are now supporting the Sniffer Dogs being brought into the Juba Airport in South Sudan and also to the ports of Mambasa. Next slide. A quick mention on demand. This is obviously a huge portion of what needs to be done is addressing the demand. Two kind of nice examples here. USAID, again, under the arrest program, does a lot of awareness and campaigns in Vietnam, Thailand, and in China, where they're reaching about 740 million people on the ground about these issues. And another program is called I Think. This is a very interesting one because it works to develop public service announcements by key opinion leaders, which encourages personal responsibility on the issue of wildlife products. And just quickly, I wanted to go back to the data because this is where USAID and the US government, like I say, has supported the collection of lots of wildlife data across the region. Next slide. We actually know that a lot of these approaches work, that these actually things are succeeding on the ground. So this is just two examples of two parks in Congo, so the Nibali and Doki National Park and also Konkwati Dwali National Park that has had long-term investment by US government through USAID and through US Fish and Wildlife. And despite the fact that populations of elephants have crashed by 76% in Central Africa, in these areas we have stable and secure elephant populations. So we know that these approaches work on the ground. And the last slide is just a little bit looking forward in terms of what USAID wants to do in the coming weeks and the coming months. First of all, next, here we go, is to scale up these effective models. As I said, we know what's working on the ground. So we really wanna scale up and take these to scale across Africa, the things that we know are working. Next, improve the use of technology. It really is an arms race. So you have poachers out there on the ground and it is an arms race with our law enforcement officials. USAID has just released its Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge. So the first round of that is just closed. And this is where we're trying to source innovative science and technology to address wildlife trafficking. I just heard the results of the first call yesterday are really interesting. We have about 299 concepts that are in from 53 countries. 86% of these concepts come from people who have never received USAID funding. And 53% of these concepts are for people who have never worked on wildlife trade or trafficking. So trying to get the best of the best and new ideas coming to the forefront. And then finally, as everyone knows, the transport sector is absolutely critical to stopping wildlife crime. So USAID is going to be focusing a lot on working with the transport sector, the logistics sector, through the Routes program to try and address the issue of trafficking across borders. Thank you very much. Incredibly comprehensive. Okay. Kirsten, thank you very much. Enrico. Yes. Good morning. My name is Enrico Pirogno and I'm working for the Director General for International Cooperation and Development at the EU Commission. It's sort of ministry or department. You should know too well how it works. I have a double handicap. First of all, I have a very poor English so I apologize for those who don't understand me and I have to find my words. I daily speak four languages. Two home and three at work. So it's quite a mess. And secondly, I am the last one to present something and it's obviously there are many things which has been said, which may seem like sort of repetition and so on. What I want to say is the European Commission has been supporting management of a significant number of protected areas in Africa since 30 years and with some programs, especially in Central Africa, which have been quite emblematics and we have put really a lot of efforts. I will not enter into the details of the type of activities because there are more or less the same that Kristen told. So what we felt now is that we needed really to have a more comprehensive view and really to develop a strategy because all these project programs have been done a little bit in a not coordinated way and so on. So we developed a document. You see the title, larger than elephants, inputs for a new strategic approach to wildlife conservation in Africa. Only to explain this title, it could take more than half an hour. Why is this? First of all, why larger than elephants? Larger than elephants because the problem is are not only elephants and rhinos. There are many other species which are threatened in Africa and if you go outside and you ask people, they will know about ivory, they will know about rhino horns, but if you talk to them that probably the third traffic is about pangolins, many people will not even know what the pangolin is and maybe people here don't know what the pangolin is. And this is also for many other species. The second, oh, well, come back, yeah. Also why an input for a strategic approach to wildlife? We wanted to have a strategy for the European Union, but then strategy has a specific meaning in our administration. We could not talk about the strategy. So we had, so we said about strategic approach and well, this is very complicated and depends really on procedures. And so finally, it's input for a new strategic approach, but basically it's a strategy and I will speak about the strategy. Next slide. Yeah, next please. Well, if you can go, this is how the different, the mainly protected areas we have been intervening in the last 30 years. There are much, much more, but these are the more important. The reason for developing this strategy came obviously from the growing global awareness of the wildlife crisis in Africa. There has been a lot of talking in the last two, three years about heavy poaching on elephants and rhino poaching and these issues, but as most of the conservation practitioner knows, this is not really something new. The wildlife crisis is long, something which is going on since a long time and just very recently it has been brought up by the media or by some spectacular actions like the massive killing that occurred in Cameroon in February 2012, but this decrease is something which is since a long time. And the reasons also for this wildlife decrease, African wildlife decrease are various and it's not only trafficking. And so we wanted really to have a sort of comprehensive strategy. Trafficking and poaching by heavy, harmed poachers and poaching for trafficking and exporting to Asia or to other destinations is certainly extremely important, but there are other reasons which are maybe more important of wildlife decline in Africa. I will just give an example of two, bush meat, I know that you know very well, bush meat according to recent statistics, recent research, only in Central Africa, the estimation is between four and five million tons of bush meat per year. This is enormous and it has an enormous impact on wildlife and all wildlife, not only I mean on small monkeys, on small antelopes, on rats, on other things. The other big issues is fuel wood and charcoal. Just to give a figure that is figure of a couple of years ago, but I mean probably it's worth now. Only in the town of Kinshasa, who has eight to 10 million inhabitants, more or less, the daily consumption of fuel wood is two kilos. Sorry, how many pounds? Four pounds? 4.5 pounds per day per inhabitants, only in Kinshasa, 10 million people. You can imagine the impact that has and this is all the other towns. So and the fuel wood and charcoal has an impact on the habitat, destruction of the habitat and so on. Without talking obviously about agriculture, agriculture extension, about agriculture development, industrial plantation and these sort of things. Another issues as well, and that's quite obvious, is climate change, the impact of climate change, the impact of demography, which is extremely important. So the idea of trying to elaborate this strategy was very simple. We know that there are many factors affecting wildlife. We know that we have limited resources. We can have a lot of financial resources, but they are only limited. So we had to try to prioritize our intervention. If we want to do something, if you want to hope to save at least partly this wonderful wildlife, we have to prioritize our interventions. And that's how came the idea of doing this document, this strategy. And the idea was also to try to coordinate the intervention because as I said in the past, we intervened in a not coordinated way. Coordinated inside the commission, inside our own departments, but coordinated with also with other donors and with USAID and with other people intervening. It's quite funny, by the way, that we are working, I think that I met for the first time Richard Rogero today and we are working, I've worked since 30 years in conservation in Africa. He's working, I don't know, maybe the same. And it's the first time we meet. It's something which is not normal. It's not his fault, it's not my fault. It's life in land that, but it's not normal. Next slide, please. Next one, I will come back on that one. So the scope of this document was to identify the scale of the threats and to try to find the most appropriate responses for the next 10 years. We fixed 10 years, time frame, why 10 years? Because if we don't solve the problem in next 10 years, then the situation will be dramatic. With the numbers of elephant decrease, with rhino poaching and with all the species decreasing, so dramatically, if we can't find the solution, if we cannot reverse the trends in the next 10 to 15 years, then the battle will be lost and the war will be lost. The other point, as I said, it's not limited to wildlife trafficking. Wildlife trafficking is certainly important. It has links with terrorism. It has links with security. It's something which has raised the attention of politicians because of the implication, but it's not the only cause of wildlife decrease. And we are also, I am working in a department which deals with international cooperation and development. We have to look also at conservation and sustainable management of wildlife for the benefit of people. Our global objective in my department is reduce poverty, so we have to look at this aspect as well. Yes, next slide please. So we had this study which was carried by some experts. We share it with most of the most important NGOs, partners, stakeholders. We had a big meeting. We integrated all the remarks, observation, and so on. And so we can say that we have now a document, a strategy, let's go like that, which really covers most of the preoccupation of the people working in the wildlife conservation. What I want to say also is that this work is not finished. We were quite in a hurry because we are in a programming exercise and we wanted to give food for thinking to the people who are programming our aid. So we were quite in a hurry to do that. And there are certain things which are still missing, but this is a work which is still going on. One thing that was mentioned was inland water, freshwater, fisheries, which is really important, which are not for seeing in that document. It will be for the next phase. Also marine conservation has not been properly addressed. We will address it in the few months. Next slide, please. So the causes of wildlife decrease, obviously it's poaching. Poaching, heavy poaching for elephants, for rhino, for ivory. But also as I said, push meat, two pictures are there. It's obviously the habitat destruction for fuel route, for agriculture, for other reason. It's demography, and demography will be dramatic in the next year in Africa. And then, yeah, you will see traffic in ghost spots. This is taken from a document of someone who will speak later on. Yes, next slide, please. Next, yeah. Climate change, obviously we have to take into account climate change. Climate change may have a tremendous impact. And we have to take this also into account. Next, please. Demography, big problem as well. It has already been mentioned. We have to mention again, poor governments, corruption, weak legislations, civil conflict. All these are affecting, and all these issues have to be tackled. And also, obviously, other economical aspects. Next slide. So, our strategy, let's call it like that, proposed intervention at three levels. Site level, protected areas. We feel that protected areas are extremely important. We need to protect what is still there at the national level and at the international level. All things which has already been said. What was important, as I said, that we want to prioritize. So, we looked at site level. Next, please. We looked at site level and see what were the areas which, to our point of view, were most important. There are more than 6,000 gazetted protected areas in Africa. I mean, it's impossible to pretend protect all of them. Most of them are paper protected areas, paper parks or whatever. We really have to concentrate on those who are important and where we can have results. And we found, in our strategy, we identified about 300 protected areas which are grouped in about 18, 80 to 85, I think the figure is a little bit higher, key landscapes. And we said, okay, that's where we have to concentrate our efforts. That's, and which was not the case in the past. In the past, we tried to intervene where there were requests and according to other criteria, now we really want to concentrate on this one. It's important to manage these protected areas to have all these, all the activities which have been described, which we are doing, obviously. We have also to look at the population, improve livelihoods around. That's why we consider landscapes and not only protected areas. We have to work with the population, with the communities we're living around. We have to make development projects so that to avoid too much pressure on the protected area. And we have to look at the big problem of sustainable management of biological resources, bush meat and fuel wood. And that's really a big, big problem. I would say, and I'm maybe provocative with here, I would say that fighting heavy poacher, fighting poacher, poaching done by armed group, by terrorists in a way, it's more easy than trying to solve the bush meat problem or the fuel wood problem. This is much more complex. I mean, fighting poachers, we could find the answer. I mean, you send a group of well armed guys, helicopters, you use modern technologies, drones, whatever, and you can control that. To try to control the problem of bush meat and fuel wood, this is really, we don't have answer. We don't even understand exactly what is the extent of the problems. So that's really a big, big problem. And we don't know what to do with that. And especially that bush meat is something that touched the population. It's linked to food security. People are living with, about bush meat. People, they need fuel wood for cooking, for many. So it's extremely important that we don't have answer to that, but we have really to address this issue and to study this issue because there are extremely important. Next slide, please. We have at the national level to intervene obviously on institutional strengthening of organization which are responsible for management of wildlife and for protected areas. We have also to fight against illegal trafficking at the national level. We have, again, the problem of bush meat, fuel wood. Also, it is a regional problem. By the way, bush meat is also the subject of, the object of trafficking. I mean, we know that there is quite a lot of bush meat that comes into Europe. There have been surveys made at the airport, Paris, and they found during a short period about five tons a week of bush meat coming into the Paris airport. And the same, I suppose, is for London, Brussels and the other major cities where we have a lot of big African population. Fuel wood is also the subject, the object of trafficking between Eastern Africa and the Arab Peninsula. So it's also entering these problems. Next slide, please. And obviously, as it has been said, and I'm not going to repeat, we have to address demand side. We have to work to make awareness programs. And we have all foreseen this in our strategy. And we want to support organization like UNODC or like EGLE, which has already been mentioned. We are also working with EGLE for the moment, like USAID. And so it's quite a comprehensive. Please, next one. So we have tried to estimate how much that would cost. That would cost more or less according to different evaluation that we have done to implement this strategy. About 770 million euros, which is 800 million dollars, more or less, per year. And this we need for the next 10 years. It's looked quite a lot of money, but if you look at the funds that are available for other developmental activities, it's really not so much. And if you imagine the impact that this can have on the African environment, I don't think this is too much. Can we come back at the second slide? Sorry, it's a little bit mess. I think it's the first slide show that PowerPoint that I prepared, so. You're doing it well. The second one, back, back, back. Yeah, no, on the other side, going back. Yes, that's right. This is what we at the European Union are going to commit in the next seven years. It's about one billion euro. It's seven years and we said that we need about six to seven billion dollars for the next 10 years. So we are a little bit short, but that's what we are going to do. Our commitments are based on the document, on the strategies that I proposed. It was very short presentation, but the strategy is about 600 pages. And it's quite detailed for every region, what we foresee to do and these sort of things. So we are very short. Another important thing that I would like to say is that we are short and we have to find solution. A solution that we've, the problem in implementing such a strategy is that our worst enemy, and I speak from 30 years of experience in the commission, our worst enemy is procedures. Our procedures, our commitment procedures, spending procedure, funding procedures, it's terrible. I think that procedures have killed more elephants than poachers. And so we have to find solution on that. I mean, the idea are there. The idea are common, the idea are shared. We have shared idea with all the NGO communities, with the donors. We know exactly what to do. We know, we may not agree on the prioritization, but we know what to do and how to do The problem is how to do it. And that's a big problem. So what this document brings as a new idea is to create a trust fund for the implementation of this strategy. We have the possibility since January 2014 to create trust fund at the EU commission. It's a new regulation. It was forbidden before, now we can't. So we have the tool, the financial regulation allows us to create EU trust fund. That's what we want to create. Why a trust fund? Because a trust fund puts all the money together. And so you have more, it's more easy to coordinate working. For the moment, all this funding that you see are split funding. We, when we use these funds, we don't, we cannot. It's impossible to use them in a coordinated way. I can just give you an example. In an area which is very important and which I know very well, the North of Central Africa and Southern of Chad. We had a project in North of Central Africa called Ecophone, nevermind. And we planned to do a project in Southern Sudan and we wanted the two projects to work together. Well, because of our procedures, because of the different funding sources and so on, the project in Central Africa is coming at the end and the other one that's almost not started. And that's, and they were supposed to work together. These are really problems that we are faced daily. And putting all the funds in one pot, in one trust fund will avoid this. The second advantage is that a trust fund has its own procedures. We can create the procedures for the trust fund. So we will not have to follow the normal EU financial procedures. We can create our own procedures. And in that case, we can ease much more, it can be much more easy, the disbursement. And so we can much more, much more easy coordinate all our intervention. So that's the main tool is one. And the other advantage obviously is that a trust fund, we can put money in it. We could put one billion euro in it in this trust fund. All the donors can come, the EU member state could come, but also it's such a trust fund it's open to all the donors as well. And that's really would make the difference. It's not a dream. We are really, we put it in this document, in this strategy. It's not a dream and just about one week ago we received a note from our director general asking for ideas for creating trust fund and where we could do it and so on. And we put this one forward. And so it's something which is really, they are really thinking at a higher level. So it's really a possibility. And I'm not sure, I'm going to retire in one year, I'm not sure that I will see this realized, but I'm working for that. Sorry, that's a little bit disorganized. I'm sorry for my English, but basically this is the idea. Yes, there is just another one if I have five minutes. One minute. One, one. Okay, just one thing. Our director general for environment, which is sort of department for environment, is actually producing an EU action plan against wildlife trafficking. This is based and will be the object of an EU communication. This is based on a consultative communication which has been done about one years ago. And this document is a document which says exactly what the member state should do, what it should be do at the legislative level. It is extremely important to coordinate the activity between member states, but it's not new funding. It's just at a more political level. Obviously in this communication and this EU action plan, there will be a chapter on interventions outside the EU and this is our document which is the answer to that. Okay, thank you. I want to. Enrico, a very insightful presentation. I could only dream to do a presentation like that in Italian or French, so thank you. And thanks to all the panelists for incredible presentations. I want to thank you for the work you're doing because it's given the scale and scope of the problem. It's comforting to know that there are people with your deep expertise, years of experience and leadership positions now that are focused on all of these aspects. I'm going to have to discipline myself. We've got 15 minutes and I want to open it up mostly for you all. I want to ask one question though and maybe it sets the stage for you all because the title of this panel is room for growth. So a lot of what has been described is incredibly good work, important and promising. But I want to ask each of you for a quick sort of lightning round answer. What is the biggest need that you see? And if I can just editorialize for a second. I think there are three from my perspective. One is the need to move toward a network disruption model from an interdiction and enforcement standpoint. And so less episodic arrests and more thinking through how to deal with logistics networks using tools unconventional like the tools we used against terrorist financing and illicit economies. So I think that's one challenge. How do we move to that kind of a model? The sustainability questions in terms of economic development, governance on the ground. How does that move forward, especially with the demographic and environmental pressures on the ground? And then finally and importantly, I was going to ask this from the start, this question of coordination because there's a lot of incredibly good work and resources being attached to this. But how is this all being coordinated so that we are efficient, we create sustainable programs and we are as dynamic and innovative as possible because there's a lot of good work being done but how is this being coordinated globally? And I'm not quite sure I see or understand that. So Dan, maybe we start with you just lightening around. What do you think is the biggest need or area of room for growth? I think I would agree that the biggest area need for growth is coordination. There is an immense effort going on and that effort is expanding now daily as we actually see exemplary leadership and being provided at all levels, government, non-government, but I think the single greatest area for growth is coordination. That we need to focus our efforts. We need to have a much more strategic vision for what we're driving to collectively. So that's my... Please. Well, I would have to agree with you about addressing the criminal networks and having some immediate impact, but at the same time recognize that a lot of the changes that you have to put on the ground will take time, will take many, many decades. You have to do reforms, but you also have to show quick results. So it's finding that sweet spot that blends it too. Kirsten? That sounded like a broken record here. So I would definitely have to agree that I think the coordination aspects are absolutely key. And in particular, I think what we need to start looking at is not only the coordination of a vision of a strategy, but in particular, the coordination of intelligence. This is absolutely key, not only for the boots on the ground approach, but also for breaking up these criminal networks. There's a lot of information out there. It's getting better and better. US government is starting to coordinate much better, I think, among the different agencies, but I think there is a lot of need for growth there and also coordination among the donor communities to make sure that we're actually all complementing the work that others are doing. There's lots to get done out there and plenty of work for everyone. Nicole? Yes? Sorry, yeah. Again, I'm the last one, so I... I benefit, it's a benefit. Well, I can only agree. Definitely, I think that coordination at all the level and the operational level, it's absolutely essential. I think it's the thing that we have been lacking the most in the past years. Good, let's open it up for questions. I know there are probably many. Let's go with the lady in the back. Please stand, identify yourself, and ask a question. Thank you. Hi, my name is Keri Lijanas. I'm serving as an 8AAAS Congressional Fellow in the Office of Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. My question is specifically about livestock capacity building, and I think primarily as it relates to bush meat. We know that our livestock R&D funding internationally and domestically is really, really low. And as we work towards developing countries, the demand for animal-sourced foods is going to go up, and it's very important also for women that are in their child-bearing years through those first thousand days of pregnancy and two years of the child's life. So how do we look at incorporating our development practices, especially for smallholders, to improve our livestock development that's environmentally conscious and allows us to be good stewards of the environment and at the same time address bush meat, wildlife trafficking, and that sort of thing. Thank you. Kirsten, do you want to take that? Anybody want to take that question? Enrico? Kirsten? So yeah, so I think you've actually asked a very, very interesting question there. You know, trying to align our development objectives with our conservation objectives and making sure that we are looking at sustainability for the long term. I think in particular when you're talking about livestock and you're talking about Africa, a lot of this is range blend management and it's looking at the implementing really, really good range management on the ground, range management that is conducive to also to wildlife habitats. And it's also looking at some of these disease issues. We tend to overlook, I think a lot of times, the aspects of the diseases that can move between populations, between wildlife and domestic species. So I think we need to be kind of looking at all of this in a very kind of holistic perspective. Good morning, you're on US to South Africa. Just tongue in cheek, that 700 million euro that is needed is the conservative sales value, final sales value of about 1100 rhino. So as a value proposition, it's not a bad value proposition. I just think we don't understand the cost of ownership. Everything we heard is so good. It's an A plus, but I think if you're Mr. Trump was here, you will ask us what's the outcome, what's the result and one already this time of the morning get that feeling, we all get at this conferences, we've lost the initiative. My question, and I'm not doing it alone, believe me, my question to the panel is, are we easy to do business with? You are not always. And we've got to reciprocate that also. We must talk about that today if possible, formal or informal, because we need to speed this up. If we, honestly, without being dramatic, if we leave today and we're happy with the policy and the PowerPoint and I'm connected to the Kruger National Park, I have an app. Since I arrived yesterday morning, I lost three rhino. I have four helicopters in the air and I'm not trying to be dramatic. This is just ticking on and on. So my well main question is, are we easy to do business with? I know us Africans, myself, we don't like administration and a lot of paper. And when we want your money, you're about to write a PhD before you get the money. And then you complete that and then you go to a meeting and understandably so. How can we be easier to do business with so that we can benefit from well-doers and donors and other philanthropists? Anyone? Gentle critique, yeah. Luis, do you want to take this? You've got lots of funding and programs and Enrico, you as well with this trust fund, perhaps emerging important question. Well, are your African partners easy to deal with? What's the challenge in terms of the coordination, whether it's in terms of funding or operationally? What are some of the challenges that you see? I mean, you have a whole range of different levels of engagement in different countries. Some countries are better organized than others, others are very struggling. So we try to adjust our programs to, I know we work with South Africa quite closely. In fact, we have some visitors there recently and we donated some vehicles. And the challenge in South Africa is different than the challenge in Mozambique. So there are no easy answers. I mean, we try to work with our embassies on the ground. We rely heavily on them to tell us what works, what doesn't work, and we try to deliver it as quickly as possible. We, of course, are frustrated at the speed with which our resources become available and we can actually bring it on the ground. This is more of a systemic issue. But the best I can tell you is that we try hard, we try to have agile delivery systems, but the scope of the problem is huge, so our challenge is to find those areas where we can have the greatest impact and go to them as quickly as possible. Yes, it's a problem. That's what I said, we have money, that's for sure. The problem is disbursement. If I start today identifying a project or an activity that I want to fund, it will take me almost two years before the money go there. And that's a nightmare. And that's why I said our worst enemy are the procedures, not the portraits. I know that you, I tried several times to launch the idea to create emergency funding. It's no way. Even recently, we agreed to extend the project, you may know, the MIC project. It was a project of monitoring of illegal gilling of elephants. We tried to transform it in MICs, minimizing illegal gilling of endangered species. And I said I specifically want an emergency fund to be attached to that program because it's absolutely needed. I want some, if someone needs quick funding, I want that in two weeks money go there, okay? We did this two years ago and they still haven't been able to, because of procedures to establish this emergency fund. That's the idea of creating a trust fund just for that. It's really because in that case, we can really find a way of easing the procedures. And I think it's the only way of doing it. If we can have the best strategy, the best document, the best ideas of the world, if then we have procedures who do not let us implement it, it's nothing. So we really have to work on procedures. And the only way today, for me, at least at our level, is to create a trust fund because it has its own procedures. Other questions? This gentleman in the back. Hi, Richard America, Georgetown University. What is your experience with U.S. multinational corporations? Are they helpful? Are there any best practices in corporate social responsibility and the like in helping solve this problem? Dan? I think there are some great examples, certainly Paul Allen and Vulcan, transport companies, I think online trading companies I think are increasingly important and we've seen positive steps by corporations, companies like eBay and others. I think, again, as this arises as a global concern and cause, I think multinational corporations will respond. I think that notion of social responsibility is really where the public at large can play a role. I think in the last two years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, we've destroyed our entire stockpile of ivory with a very visible crush of six tons of ivory in Denver and several weeks ago, another two tons of ivory in Times Square. At Times Square event, we got over 2 billion online impressions, 600 plus media stories, over 200 broadcast stories, over 30 countries worldwide. So as we raise the profile of this issue, and again I think the public exposure, then the multinational corporations will begin to respond. And so I think that's what we need from the public is a greater engagement and then a greater communication to multilateral corporations. So then they'll reflect this in their social responsibility practices. If I can just editorialize again here moderator's prerogative. I think this is one of the great opportunities. We've talked about network disruption, but it's also network creation and the variety of communities of interest that can be brought to bear. New technologies, Kirsten, you mentioned the online challenge and the technology challenge. Just enormous opportunities to bring together law enforcement, national security, environmental and conservancy groups, the private sector, shipping companies, banks, all of which have an interest in ensuring that this problem doesn't get worse and hopefully improves. And so I think there's huge advantage there. Jennifer, with your indulgence, one more question if that's okay. We may go over a couple of minutes. This young lady here. Yes, thank you for the panel. I wanted to ask specifically to Dan Ash. Identify yourself, please. Oh, Susanna Cunningham from The Enough Project at the Center for American Progress. So I wanted to ask what projects have you seen that give you the most optimism with combating the financiers or, as you say, the profiteers of wildlife poaching? Because you mentioned during your talk that there is an infinite amount of supply for people to replenish poachers as they're captured. So if the issue is, instead, those who are profiting or financing it, what are the most effective programs that you've seen, either public or private, to combat this? I think there's a lot of room for optimism on the public side in demand reduction. I'll go up to, I'll just mention shark fin. I think we have seen in the last three to four years just a worldwide kind of turnaround in demand for and processing of shark finning. It's still an issue for us to deal with, but I think we've reached a tipping point there. And we did that by focusing on enforcement, focusing on bringing it before international organizations like SITES and then dealing with demand reduction in a key country like China. So to me, that tells us we can do this. I think in the Fish and Wildlife Service and operation, like Operation Crash with Rhino Horn, where we have arrested over 30 individuals, we've gotten with the help of the Justice Department over 17 convictions, we've confiscated millions of dollars in cash and dozens of Rhino horns. So that being an example of kind of taking it to the people who are making the money, not catching the poacher or the middle people, but going after the people who are making the money in Rhino trafficking. So we can make a difference on law enforcement. And then I guess I would, again, have to come back to what I saw in Gabon, where you have a national commitment to protected area designation and management. So making a difference by designating protected areas and then by managing them effectively. So I think those are the three things I would say. Again, if I could just weigh in. I wrote a piece in Business Insider a little bit about this. And if I could just point to a couple of things I think would be helpful. I think using some of the executive order authorities that we've used to go after terrorists, financiers, proliferation financiers and others, to start targeting the networks. Again, this goes to network analysis, intelligence sharing and understanding that a bit better. And there's no reason there shouldn't be and there can be a commensurate UN Security Council resolution akin to what you've had in the terrorism context with the 1267 regime and its progeny in the wildlife trafficking and financing context. And if you get China to help support, perhaps even sponsor that could be an area of greater coordination internationally. So that's an area of potential growth. I think we have to close it there. I wish we could go longer. Please join me in thanking this wonderful panel.