Washington, D.C. - Tomorrow at 10 a.m., House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) will convene a hearing entitled “Advancing Effective Conservation Policy: Successes, Challenges, and Next Steps."
Chairman Royce on the hearing: “The END Wildlife Trafficking Act is helping combat terrorists, gangsters and other dangerous criminals engaged in illegal wildlife trafficking and poaching. Operation Jungle Book, the largest crackdown on wildlife trafficking in California’s history, was carried out last year using authorities provided by this law. But of course, we still face many significant challenges in our work to protect the world’s most majestic animals from extinction. This hearing will look at how we can build on recent wins for conservation - including China’s move to shutter its ivory trade - with strong public-private partnerships and new initiatives like the DELTA Act."
Immediately following the hearing, the committee will consider the Defending Economic Livelihoods and Threatened Animals (DELTA) Act (H.R. 4819). Authored by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY), the bipartisan legislation promotes sustainable economic development and conservation across Africa’s critical Okavango River Basin, which supports more than one million Angolans, Botswanans and Namibians, as well as the largest remaining elephant population in the world.
What.
Hearing: Advancing Effective Conservation Policy: Successes, Challenges, and Next Steps
Markup: H.R. 4819, DELTA Act
When.
10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 22
Where.
2172 Rayburn House Office Building
Witnesses.
Ms. Gretchen S. Peters
Executive Director
Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime
Mr. Dave Stewart
Executive Vice President and General Counsel
Vulcan
Elizabeth L. Bennett, Ph.D.
Vice President for Species Conservation
Wildlife Conservation Society.
