USAID and Thailand’s Department of National Parks Launch Expanded Wildlife Demand Reduction Steering Group

USAID and Thailand’s Department of National Parks Launch Expanded Wildlife Demand Reduction Steering Group
USAID and DNP have launched the expanded Demand Reduction Steering Group on March 14, 2022.
With the support of USAID Reducing Demand for Wildlife, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) convened the Demand Reduction Steering Group (DRSG) on March 14, 2022, to strengthen the coordination of an increasing number of wildlife demand reduction campaigns in Thailand. Representatives from leading wildlife protection organizations attended the meeting including UNDP GEF 6, WildAid, TRAFFIC, WWF, IUCN, Freeland, Love Wildlife, Nature Play n Learn, and Globescan.

The meeting chair, Klairoong Poonpon, Director of DNP’s CITES Implementation and Monitoring Sub-division, Wildlife Fauna and Flora Protection Division, presented the proposed terms of engagement for the group to maximize results of demand reduction campaigns. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora’s (CITES), at the highest level, recently emphasized the importance of wildlife demand reduction and government leadership in securing multi-stakeholder collaboration in these initiatives.

The participants agreed to expand the group’s membership to local NGOs and other organizations involved in demand reduction activities covering all species regardless of funding source. The participants also agreed on four objectives to be pursued for 2022 including support for Thailand’s national commitments to the CITES Resolution Conf. 17.4 and associated draft Guidance on demand reduction. The group will meet again in mid-June to discuss actions to achieve the priority objectives for 2022. 

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Coordination of wildlife demand reduction efforts is crucial to achieve synergies and cost-efficiencies that will increase the success of the activities towards the protection of endangered animals.

“A strengthened DRSG will serve as a model of coordination for demand reduction activities to counter illegal wildlife trafficking in other countries and as a model of regional coordination in ASEAN. We hope it can be replicated and expanded as we go forward,” said Craig Kirkpatrick, Regional Wildlife Conservation Advisor of USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia.

The DRSG was originally established in August 2020 to serve as a mechanism to coordinate demand reduction campaigns funded by the UNDP GEF 6 project, which ended in December 2021.

Check out some of the demand reduction campaigns of USAID, DNP, ADB, UNDP, UNODC, TRAFFIC, Wildaid, Freeland, World Bank’s Global Wildlife Program and Global Environment Facility, and others here.