According to professor Teresa Fajardo del Castillo, at the University of Granada, the positive results are due to the specialization of both the regulatory instruments adopted in Spanish law and the law enforcement agencies that are responsible for their implementation and compliance.
CRIMEANTHROP stakeholder meeting in Granada
Fajardo is one of the research partners in the project "CRIMEANTHROP: Criminal justice, wildlife conservation and animal rights in the Anthropocene". The research team presented their research at a stakeholder meeting hosted by the faculty of law, University of Granada. Present at the seminar, which it was also possible to attend via Zoom, were researchers, students, politicians and representatives from Spanish and international NGOs.
The meeting was headed by professor Ragnhild Sollund, who both chaired as well as presented her own research on CITES in a Norwegian context. Sollund and Fajardo both find important differences and similarities when it comes to the implementation of CITES in Norway and Spain.
– Spain faces specific challenges regarding the protection of wildlife as a country of origin, transit and destination of wildlife trafficking, explains professor Fajardo.
The CITES Convention is implemented in Spain through the CITES Regulation of the European Union and the Spanish Action Plan against illegal trafficking and international poaching of wildlife species (Plan TIFIES). Penalties for breaches of this legislation are imposed administratively and criminally through the Smuggling Act and the Criminal Code. The close cooperation of the CITES authorities in Spain and their collaboration with the specialized prosecutor's office and the Nature Protection Service of the Guardia Civil are the key to compliance with the CITES Convention.
In Norway, on the other hand, comments Sollund, there are no specialized judges and both police, state prosecutors and judges seem to lack knowledge about the seriousness of such offences and experience in treating them, and consequently penalties, if imposed, are generally lenient. While there is ad hoc cooperation in specific cases, stronger cooperation between enforcement agencies would be beneficial.
– In Spain we do not euthanize trafficked animals
This is unfortunately not the case in all the countries that have ratified the CITES convention.
In Norway, as a contrast, the general policy has been to kill trafficking victims who are seized on Norwegian borders. While for some time efforts were made to rehome animals, particularly if they pertained to endangered species, as zoos reached a saturation point for frequently trafficked species, they would reject to rehome them and the Norwegian Environment Agency would order the border veterinarians to kill them. A change in the CITES regulation in Norway was made in 2021, which may improve the situation somewhat, since now the Norwegian Environment Agency must consider attempts to return or rehome animals who are listed on appendix I of CITES as endangered. This may, however, mean that animals listed on appendix II or III or who are not listed on any appendix may still be killed.