9-10 March 2021, Bangkok, Thailand

At the invitation of the Royal Thai Customs, Mr. Norikazu Kuramoto, Head, and Ms. Yuko Mamiya, Program Manager of ROCB A/P attended the Maritime Stakeholder Meeting “Countering wildlife trafficking and other illicit trade through Thai seaports and maritime supply chains” held from 9 to 10 March 2021 in Bangkok, Thailand. This meeting was jointly organized by the Royal Thai Customs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Wildlife Asia, TRAFFIC and the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) with the financial contribution of USAID Wildlife Asia, WWF and UNODC. Over 70 representatives from the Royal Thai Customs, other government departments, international organizations and the private sector entities, mainly from shipping and freight companies, participated in this meeting.

This meeting aims to deepen the participants’ understanding of the risks and impacts brought to maritime supply chains by wildlife trafficking as well as share best practices and identifying interventions which will address existing gaps in systems and processes that are exposing the industry to transnational traffickers’ nefarious operations.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Chaiyut Kumkun, Principal Advisor on Customs Control Development for Director-General of Thai Customs, underlined that the governments cannot win the battle against wildlife trafficking alone and Public-Private Pertnerships are the only way to seriously tackle the traffickers that move wildlife products across borders and jurisdictions.

During the meeting, important issues such as perspectives on the future of ending maritime illicit trade and possible vulnerabilities to the illicit trade in export, transit and import chains were actively discussed among the participants. Mr. Kuramoto and Ms. Mamiya introduced the WCO CENcomm Customs communication platform which promotes information and data exchange as well as the WCO instruments and tools which can be utilized to fight against illicit trade including wildlife trafficking through discussions.

For more information about USAID Wildlife Asia at usaidwildlifeasia.org.

For more information about TRAFFIC at traffic.org.

For more information about WWF at www.worldwildlife.org.

For more information about UNODC at UNODC Global Programme for Combating Wildlife and Forest Crime.