White Paper: Natural History Museums & Wildlife Trafficking, ICOM NATHIST, October 2016

Recognizing the grave need to curb trafficking of wildlife globally, and natural history museums’ largely untapped ability to contribute to this issue, ICOM NATHIST has collaborated with like-minded institutions to create a framework to facilitate involvement by workers in the field.

Natural History Museums and Wildlife Trafficking: A Framework for Global Action is a white paper released by ICOM NATHIST. It lays out the organization’s vision for involving the world’s natural history museums in the fight against illicit trafficking of wildlife. The paper describes some of our core values on the illegal wildlife trade, as well as our priorities for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of coordinated efforts.

The white paper was ratified following the Annual General Meeting of ICOM NATHIST, in Milan, Italy, in July 2016 and the final version launched on the 4th of October 2016.

The document explores the key issues that can be tackled by the field, in various ways:

• Communication within the sector
• Building and strengthening partnerships
• Improving documentation
• Support and training of front-line professionals
• Raising public awareness
• Improving identification methods
• Museum security
• Lobbying for improved legislation

Download a PDF version of the paper. Natural History Museums and Wildlife Trafficking: A Framework for Global Action

Download the free Adobe PDF Reader here.

Our next steps in this is initiative are to coordinate tangible actions that will focus on raising public awareness and contributing scientific expertise. For more information on this initiative, please contact us at this link.