Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Notification; Review of the Effectiveness of the Convention

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) announces a public meeting to discuss an international study of the effectiveness of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and announces the availability for public comment of a questionnaire as part of this study. This study is the result of a decision of the Ninth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in November 1994. This decision gave the CITES Standing Committee the responsibility to conduct a review of the effectiveness of the provisions and implementation of the Convention, and to report its findings to the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties. An international contractor in the United Kingdom has been engaged for this study by the CITES Standing Committee, and has produced a questionnaire for governments to respond to. The Service, in preparing the U.S. government response, seeks the comments of interested non-governmental organizations. The questionnaire itself is extensive and would therefore be very expensive and time consuming to reproduce here. The Service prefers to make this questionnaire available by electronic means if possible. However, should some member of the public not have access to the transfer of this questionnaire by electronic means, alternate arrangements such as faxing or mailing of copies will be made. Public input from written comments received by the Service will be considered in formulating the United States response to this questionnaire.