(LB - Lebanon) Workshop to promote animal welfare

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Workshop to promote animal welfare

‘Now is the time to prove this is an issue that is being taken seriously’

 

By Dalila Mahdawi

Daily Star staff

 

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

 

BEIRUT: Lebanon is moving closer toward enacting landmark animal welfare

legislation, with the first ever national workshop on the issue to be held next

week.

 

Experts from across the European Union will join Lebanese animal welfare

activists and government officials for a two-day workshop kicking off next

Tuesday.

 

The workshop, which is being held under the patronage of Agriculture Minister

Hussein Hajj Hassan, will address animal welfare issues related to the

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

(CITES). Also on the discussion table is how the standards upheld by the

European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) can be tailored for Lebanon.

 

The meeting comes two months after Hajj Hassan traveled to Qatar to discuss with

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

(CITES) Secretary General Willem Wijnstekers the possibility of signing up to

the treaty. Lebanon and Bahrain are the only Arab states that have not yet

signed the 1975 treaty. In March, Hajj Hassan said he was working on signing

Beirut up to CITES by 2011.

 

“The Agriculture Ministry has accepted that animal welfare is an issue

important to the public and has to be addressed,†said Lana al-Khalil,

Ppresident of Animals Lebanon, which helped organize the workshop.

 

“This is a good first beginning to enacting national animal welfare laws and

now is the time for everyone to prove this is an issue that is being taken

seriously,†she said, noting however that much remained to be done.

 

Aside from a law fining those who purposefully harm animals around $15, Lebanon

has no animal welfare or conservation legislation. Beirut also lacks legislation

to license and regulate petshops or zoos, and no zoo is part of the World Zoo

Association or EAZA.

 

“In zoos throughout the country there is little or no conservation or

education value and animals suffer in horribly inadequate conditions,†Khalil

said.

 

Although Lebanon isn’t yet a party to CITES, it is still technically required

to monitor any trade of animals between countries that have ratified the

convention. Because of a lack of training in animal policing and bribery among

border officials, however, Lebanon is considered an easy transit base for animal

smugglers to import and export endangered flora and fauna. Elephants, big cats,

birds and chimpanzees are just some of the species known to have been brought

into Lebanon.

 

Last September, a lion cub was discovered abandoned in a cage in a Beirut

alleyway. The severely dehydrated animal, which had been kept illegally, died

shortly after being rescued.

 

In December, Animals Lebanon alerted Hajj Hassan to the presence of an Egyptian

circus in Beirut’s Dora suburb.

 

The circus had entered Lebanon without the correct paperwork and with several of

its animals, including three tigers and six lions, in need of urgent veterinary

treatment.

 

Hajj Hassan later declared the circus illegal and ordered it to close and leave

Lebanon immediately, though his decision was not adhered to.

 

The most recent known smuggling case occurred earlier this month, when a

shipment of 108 endangered grey parrots was shipped from Beirut to Sofia,

Bulgaria.

 

The parrots, one of whom died in transit, appear to have been smuggled by a

Lebanese man with Bulgarian nationality, and could have fetched up to $266,000

on the black market in Europe.