Geneva (Switzerland)/Nairobi
(Kenya), 13 March 2010 - John Scanlon, a
top advisor at the United Nations Environment
Programme, has been named as the new Secretary-General
of the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and
Fauna (CITES).
Mr. Scanlon was selected
after a global search and selection process
yielding close to 200 applicants and will
assume his new position in May 2010.
Mr. Scanlon, an Australian
national, joined the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) in 2007 as the Principal
Advisor on Policy and Programme to Executive
Director Achim Steiner, in which capacity
he also led the UNEP internal reform team.
A lawyer by training,
he has had a long and distinguished career
in environmental law, policy and management
at national and international levels.
Among other roles, he
was Australia's first independent Commissioner
on the Murray Darling Basin Commission,
he held the position of Strategic Advisor
to the World Commission on Dams in Cape
Town (South Africa), and headed the Environmental
Law Programme (Bonn, Germany) at the International
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
He also served as Chief
Executive of the Department of Environment,
Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs in South
Australia and held several senior roles
in New South Wales including as Deputy Director-General
of the Department of Infrastructure, Planning
and Natural Resources.
CITES is an international
agreement between governments that was adopted
in 1973 in order to ensure that international
trade of wild animals and plans does not
threaten their survival.
With some 175 Parties,
the Convention is one of the world's most
important agreements on species conservation
and the sustainable use of wildlife.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General
and Executive Director of UNEP, said: "John
Scanlon is a highly qualified and accomplished
professional in the fields of environmental
law, international policy and governance.
His extensive management experience in public
institutions and the strategic role he played
in UNEP's recent reform programme make him
an outstanding candidate for leading the
CITES Secretariat at this critical juncture
when the efficacy of environmental governance
instruments is under scrutiny."
CITES is currently holding
its fifteenth meeting of the Conference
of Parties in Doha, Qatar, from 13 to 25
March.
Over 42 proposals are
on the table, reflecting growing international
concern about the accelerating destruction
of the world's marine and forest ecosystems
through overfishing and excessive logging,
and the potential impacts of climate change
on the biological resources of the planet.
A growing number of
commercially exploited fish have come under
CITES controls in recent years. For instance,
basking and whale sharks were included in
Appendix II in 2002, the great white shark
and the humphead wrasse in 2004, and the
European eel and sawfishes in 2007.
2010 marks the International
Year of Biodiversity and the role of CITES
in regulating the global trade in plant
and animal species is widely regarded as
central to promoting the dual objectives
of conservation and sustainable use.
Mr. Scanlon succeeds
Mr. Willem Wijnstekers who served the CITES
Convention as Secretary-General since 1999
and will retire on 1st May 2010.
