98 



A FIVE YEAR MORATORIUM ON THE TRADE OF LIVE BIRDS IS NEEDED 



On the basis of the situation summarized above, APC believes that the harvest of birds 

 for national and international trade is not currently being conducted in a sustainable manner. 

 Because the exploitation of live birds and their shipment around the world has had severe 

 impacts on many wild populations in countries of origin, APC believes that there is no rational 

 choice but to halt or greatly decrease the international and national trade in parrots and other 

 birds until evidence can be presented that such trade in any species can be constituted in a 

 sustainable manner. If trade in live birds is to continue, trade practices must be changed, and 

 the removal of birds from the wild must be dramatically decreased. It is unlikely that the trade 

 can be made sustainable in the face of the great pressure exerted by the current climate of 

 unsustainable use. Under such conditions, most attempts at sustainable harvesting are likely to 

 fail. 



APC recommends a moratorium on the international trade of wild-caught birds for a 5ve 

 year period. A moratorium is recommended because it is the most sensible stance in terms of 

 its potentials for immediately reducing the detrimental effects of the trade on wild populations, 

 its simplicity and effectiveness of regulations, and its cost effectiveness. At the end of the 

 moratorium, trade could be reopened for selected species when it can be shown that harvesting 

 is sustainable. Obtaining the biological and sociological data to conduct a sustainable trade will 

 require large investments of time and money, but trade should not have been allowed in the first 

 place without this information. 



A five year moratorium would be long enough to permit overexploited bird populations 

 to begin to recover and would allow time for important conservation programs to be enacted. 

 An international campaign could be begun to pass legislation like the Wild Bird Conservation 

 Act in the European Economic Community, Japan, and other countries. Education programs 

 about the implications of keeping parrots and other birds as pets could be implemented to reduce 

 the demand for wild birds both in wnpornag and exporting countries. Research programs to 

 document the status, basic natural history, and population dynamics of exploited species could 

 be initiated. Experimental ranching programs could be run in selected exporting countries to find 

 solutions to poaching, illegal laundering of birds, and other associated problems. In our view, 

 a moratorium would be held open for limited importations of birds as part of internationally 

 recognized scientific studies of birds in captivity, recovery efforts, or public exhibitions for 

 educational purposes. A moratorium for five years would signal that business can not continue 

 as usual, but that business could continue if the trade could be made sustainable. It would 

 provide impetus to the users of birds, the harvesters and importers, to take the steps needed to 

 make a trade in birds sustainable, which would not be a trivial undertaking. 



APC realizes that the issues relating to the governance of the international and national 

 trade are complex, and that biological, political, social, and economic factors each affect the 

 conditions under which trade has been or should be implemented. But because a moratorium or 

 a trade ban alone is unlikely to slow the high rate of habitat destruction that threatens parrots and 

 other forms of biological diversity, pobcy should be enacted in such a way that it will encourage 

 future harvesting schemes if they can be demonstrated to be truly sustainable. 



