The Joint Meeting of the Bern Convention Network of Special Focal Points (SFPs) on Eradication of Illegal Killing, Trapping and Trade in Wild Birds and the CMS Intergovernmental Task Force on Illegal Killing, Taking and Trade of Migratory Birds in the Mediterranean (MIKT) will take place from 7 to 9 June 2022 in Valencia, Spain in hybrid format. It will be the first time the participants have met in-person since the Joint meeting in Rome, in May 2019. The Joint Meeting will bring together the SFPs and members and observers to CMS MIKT. It will provide an opportunity for the participants to discuss developments and make progress in achieving key objectives of the Rome Strategic Plan 2020-2030: Eradicating Illegal Killing, Taking and Trade in Wild Birds in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The meeting will start on Tuesday, 7 June 2022 at 09:00 (CEST) and will end on Thursday, 9 June 2022 at 13:00 (CEST).

Goals of the Meeting

The meeting aims to make progress on the following key objectives under the Rome Strategic Plan:

• Monitoring the scale and scope of Illegal Killing, Taking and Trade of Wild Birds (IKB). Special attention will be given to sharing best-practice and presenting methodologies to measure IKB.
• Monitoring the motivations for IKB. Endorsement of a common format on conducting socio-economic surveys to determine the motivations for IKB in a country;
• Ensuring that IKB is addressed efficiently and effectively in national legislation. Legislative guidance for assessing the efficiency of national legislation and model legislation examples will be presented and discussed;
• Developing National IKB Action Plans. The aim will be to endorse a format and guidance for developing National IKB Action Plans.

Additionally, MIKT members are expected to jointly review and agree instructions for additional narrative to be provided as part of the third Scoreboard to Assess the Progress in Combating IKB submission, in 2023.

Finally, MIKT members are expected to present their achievements since the last meeting and determine training needs.

Background

Illegal killing, taking and trade of migratory birds (IKB) has been of growing concern in the Mediterranean region over the past decades. In response to this threat, the 11th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CMS (CMS COP11, Quito, 2014) adopted CMS Resolution 11.16 (Rev. COP13) to establish an Intergovernmental Task Force on Illegal Killing, Taking and Trade of Migratory Birds in the Mediterranean (MIKT). MIKT members and observers have been actively working towards the eradication of IKB. This will be the 5th meeting of the Task Force (MIKT5), after its meetings in Cairo in 2016 (MIKT1), in Malta in 2017 (MIKT2), in Rome in 2019 (MIKT 3) and online in 2022 (MIKT4). Since 2017 these meetings have been held jointly with the Bern Convention SPFs on IKB.

Information for in-person participants (revised) COVID-19 Guidelines Online Meeting Protocol