Wildlife traders at a meeting on Wednesday agreed to seek compensation and an audience with President Bharrat Jagdeo in a bid to mitigate the effects of a ban on wild caught birds by the European Union (EU).
The EU imposed the embargo in late 2005 and the potentially lethal H5N1 strain showing up in a Surinamese bird quarantined with other birds, led to rules being made stiffer. Reports from the EU indicated that the bird possibly contracted the strain from the birds it was being kept with. These birds were not from Suriname.
Secretary of the Wildlife Association Thelma Reece had said on Sunday that they were looking to come up with new strategies to approach the EU about the embargo, which is crippling the local wildlife industry. She noted that at the moment no birds were being exported legally.
Reece said yesterday that compensation was among the main issues discussed at the meeting. The association is now working on a proposal with that aim in mind.
The proposal would be submitted to the local wildlife authority which would then approach the EU.
It was also revealed by the secretary that because of the level of levies paid by members of the association and the amount of foreign exchange earned by the sector they would be seeking a meeting with President Jagdeo.
The secretary suggested that with compensatory and regulatory measures worked out the issue of smuggling could also be addressed. She stated that even with the embargo smuggling has continued. Reece also pointed out that birds are migratory so bird flu would remain anyway.
“It is not fair for us to be working as traders and the trade is stopped just like that. There are a lot of persons involved in the wildlife trade,” Reece lamented. She said that the authorities did not consider the chain of persons who could be affected by the embargo.
She opined that compensation could assist with breeding birds in captivity pointing to the fact that American importers accept birds bred under such conditions.
She also noted that the dealers in Europe have been compensated for the blocking of the trade.
