https://www.mahohboh.org/quo-vadis/
SUCo-SA & CITES
Home is the sailor, home from the sea. And home, safely, are our delegates from CoP 19 at Panama. We welcome them back with open arms and extend our congratulations to them all for trying so hard to do what is right.
I have attended three such conventions. I stood back from this year’s adventure, however, with all the best intentions in the world – but, largely, to allow our team to experience the journey without preconceptions. Now our people are back and they will be able to judge for themselves just what they actually achieved; and what they had hoped to achieve but did not.
They had Eugene and Helene Lapointe to guide them, however, so they have been in the very best of hands. Eugene is a past Secretary General of the convention. In the end, however, each one of our people will generate his or her own personal thoughts about their trip and how they believe they can and should travel along the road ahead.
In writing this report, it is not my intention to pour cold water on my colleagues’ excitement about having just participated in such an auspicious event. Will they be excited about that participation?
Of course they will! I know I was – every time! Now, however, they have the experience of one convention under their belts and that gives them a perspective about CITES that they never had before. Now they will know better what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved when attending what I consider to be this very sad and iniquitous event.
Next time, they will know better what to expect. And those expectations are what will colour their attitude towards the convention-as-a-whole in the years ahead.
SUCo-SA & CITES
Home is the sailor, home from the sea. And home, safely, are our delegates from CoP 19 at Panama. We welcome them back with open arms and extend our congratulations to them all for trying so hard to do what is right.
I have attended three such conventions. I stood back from this year’s adventure, however, with all the best intentions in the world – but, largely, to allow our team to experience the journey without preconceptions. Now our people are back and they will be able to judge for themselves just what they actually achieved; and what they had hoped to achieve but did not.
They had Eugene and Helene Lapointe to guide them, however, so they have been in the very best of hands. Eugene is a past Secretary General of the convention. In the end, however, each one of our people will generate his or her own personal thoughts about their trip and how they believe they can and should travel along the road ahead.
In writing this report, it is not my intention to pour cold water on my colleagues’ excitement about having just participated in such an auspicious event. Will they be excited about that participation?
Of course they will! I know I was – every time! Now, however, they have the experience of one convention under their belts and that gives them a perspective about CITES that they never had before. Now they will know better what can be achieved and what cannot be achieved when attending what I consider to be this very sad and iniquitous event.
Next time, they will know better what to expect. And those expectations are what will colour their attitude towards the convention-as-a-whole in the years ahead.
