Illegal trade of endangered species of fauna and flora became a great problem, not well recognised, in Poland, in past years, especiaslly, when Polish eastern borders became Europe's borders.CITES Convention obliges their participants to effective actions, what is not the case in Poland nowdays.Growing smuggling of these species to Poland as a transit country to the Western Europe as well as a growing market in Poland is facing not sufficient knwledge and enforcement of legal tools which are formally in place.
WWF in order to minimalize the scale and nature of illegal trade entering Poland (as targeted country) and Europe (as final destination) is organizing within this project:
-trainings for all services involved in biorder control ( custom services, police, border services etc);
campaign addressed to the wider public informing about the problem, side-effects, raising awarness;
-preparation of concrete solution how to deal with captured animals and plans at the border, what's bring very fast growing burden to all involved services (custom,police,local governments etc);project, through consultation manner, dialoque with all involved stakeholders should bring proposals for a concrete solutions, financial mechanism to deal with growing costs, discussion (and public support) to alternative solutions (eg. animal farm?); construction of 3 stands- exibition at 4 Polish international airports in Poznan,Gdansk and Cracow; translation of manual for custom offices (how to recognise hunter's trophies and key for identification of turtles; poster for tourists informing about campaign against illegal trae,Convention and obligations; preparation of raport on illegal trade of turtles;preparation of a manual how to proceed with confiscated animals - starting point for discussion with all stakeholders involved (poice,custom officers, local governments at the border affected areas);