Summary of the 5th CITES Working Group Meeting
Runolist hut, Medvednica Mountain, Croatia 2-3 March 2006

Participants

2nd February 14.00- 22.00

The first day was dedicated for the discussions regarding the implementation of the 2nd and 3rd action of the CeeTES project as well as to the fine tuning of the methodology for the Baseline Documentation (1st action)

3rd Action - Monitoring of e-trade with CITES species/products
After the discussions it turned out that basically the monitoring is going ahead without major problems. The general outcomes/conclusions of the discussions are the following:

2nd Action - Monitoring of retail commerce of CITES species/products
Generally the action is going on without significant problems in the majority of the countries. The coordinator has not received the databases for the first two monitoring periods from most of the participant countries (only exception Croatia). The participants will send the databases in the close future; the general understanding of the problem prior to the meeting was that the databases should be sent in the end of the project.

Fine-tuning of the methodology for the 1st Action under the CeeTES project, baseline documentation
There was a long discussion about the methodology prepared by the Green Balkans for this action of the project. Generally the members acknowledged that the methodology is built up very well and is very detailed, but many representatives noted that the methodology is far too detailed for the available budget. The common agreement was to shorten significantly the methodology for the present action, but to search funding for the parts which can not be covered by the present action.

3rd February 08.30- 13.00 - Miscellaneous items - Among other issues we updated the 2006 work plan of the WG.