Statement of-Continued Brennan, James, Acting General Counsel, Department of Commerce_ Coerr, Ambassador Wymberley, delegate to the Convention on Corcoran, James P., assistant attorney general, State of New York.. Doman, Everett, Director of the Division of Wildlife Management, Frank, Richard, Center for Law and Social Policy of the Sierra Club__ Gazlay, A. Gene, director, Michigan Department of Natural Re- Helstoski, Hon. Henry, a Representative in Congress from the State of Herter, Christian A., Special Assistant to the Secretary of State Hughes, Robert C., chairman of the Sierra Club's National Wildlife Irwin, Howard S., president, New York Botanical Garden... Page 226 320 292 2 351 281 236 333 201 298 241 285 277 2 236 333 266 362 382 Pollock, Howard, Deputy Administrator, NOAA, U.S. Department of 226 Poole, Daniel A., president of Wildlife Management Institute (prepared) 363 Reed, Nathaniel P., Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and 201 Roe, Hon. Robert A., a Representative in Congress from the State of 278 Schoning, Robert, Deputy Director, National Marine Fisheries 226 Seater, Stephen R., director of public relations, Defenders of Wildlife. 306 320 Stevens, Christine, secretary, Society for Animal Protective Legislation, Washington, D.C. 255 Vander Kolk, Marvin, Division of Legislative Affairs, Department of 236 Wallace, David, Associate Administrator, NOAA, Department of 226 Watling, Harold, Defenders of Wildlife. 306 Wheeler, Douglas, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of the Interior... 201 Whitehurst, Hon. G. William, a Representative in Congress from the 280 Wilson, Cynthia E., Washington representative, National Audubon 248 Young, Hon. C. W. Bill, a Representative in Congress from the Additional information supplied-Continued Commerce Department: Possible inconsistencies between the en- Corcoran, James P.: Mason law...... Dingell, Hon. John D.: Countries participating in the development of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Page 235 Plenipotentiary Conference To Conclude an International Con- Brooks, James W., Alaska Department of Fish and Game, letter of 380 Carlson, C. Edward, letter of February 20, 1971, to Clark M. Hoff- pauer.. Dean, Frederick C., University of Alaska, letter of March 19, 1973, Dingell, John D., letter of April 5, 1973, to Nathaniel P. Reed. Ehrlich, Miles, letter of March 12, 1973, to Hon. John D. Dingell... Farmen, Darrell, Alaska Professional Hunters Association, letter of February 2, 1973, to John D. Dingell... Forgy, Frances A., letter of December 18, 1964, to J. D. Hair, Jr. 320 379 314 Letter of December 8, 1972, to Nathaniel Reed.. 338 340 312 Hoffpauer, Clark M., letter of March 22, 1971, to C. Edward Carlson. 318 Letter of April 11, 1973, to Representative John D. Dingell with 366 Letter of April 23, 1973, to Hon. John D. Dingell with enclosure_ 368 Potter, Frank, letter of April 17, 1973 to Nathaniel P. Reed request- 372 Sharp, James R., Fur Conservation Institute of America, letter of 369 Communications submitted for the record-Continued Thacker, Roger, North American Falconers Association, letter of Letter of March 18, 1965, to J. D. Hair, Jr........ Letter of May 21, 1965, to R. K. Yancey with enclosed bill, Towell, William E., American Forestry Association, letter of March Page 382 381 ENDANGERED SPECIES THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1973 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE COMMITTEE ON MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:10 a.m., in room 1334, Longworth Office Building, Hon. John D. Dingell (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. DINGELL. The subcommittee will come to order. The Chair is particularly pleased to welcome old friends, Christian Herter and Ambassador Coerr and their associates, to the committee for a statement today. The Chair is particularly pleased to welcome you gentlemen upon the successful completion of your negotiations to draft a tough, workable treaty for the protection of endangered species of plants and animals. The Chair does wish to commend you gentlemen, your associates and those who participated as part of the U.S. delegation on an outstanding job. The 3 weeks of discussions, talks and horse-trading which have just recently concluded have produced a document of which you can justly be proud. I am very much impressed by the fact that the draft convention which you have produced, potentially a highly controversial document, was ultimately worked out without the necessity for ever having had to put a section, clause, or word to a vote. I wish that you could show us how this might be done in the Congress we might be much more productive if we could follow your example. As I am sure you are aware, the convention which was produced, generated originally by a congressional directive, was a little late, and we need not go into the reasons for that right now, but was certainly timely. The timeliness of the convention is all the more significant in view of the fact that this committee intends shortly to begin hearings with a view to amending existing U.S. legislation protecting endangered species. It is my hope to develop further amendments to the legislation now pending before this committee in order to make the U.S. internal laws entirely consistent with the treaty which you are responsible for having produced. In the course of your comments, you may care to discuss the additional requirements which the Congress imposed upon the executive (1) branch, and upon the State Department, to develop new international agreements for the protection of marine ecosystems and marine mammals. Our Marine Mammal Protection Act calls for the convening of an international ministerial meeting for this purpose not be later than July 1 of this year. I am constrained to remark that this date may not be possible to meet, in view of the brief time remaining, but I would hope that such a meeting can be brought off at the earliest possible time. I will no doubt be discussing this matter further with you. I would also say that it is my hope that you gentlemen will be in a position to handle that matter as well. Your track record on the endangered species convention is such that your involvment in the Marine Mammal Conference could only be to the good. Gentlemen, I thank you for coming up to be with us today. We look forward with pleasure to your presentation. Mr. Secretary, you may proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTIAN A. HERTER, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE, ACCOMPANIED BY AMBASSADOR WYMBERLEY COERR, DELEGATE TO THE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF WILD FAUNA AND FLORA Mr. HERTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and particularly thanks for your very kind remarks with respect to the negotiations we have recently completed on a Convention on Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora and let me say that we spend a good deal of time in developing a definition that was satisfactory to everybody in this regard. Simply by way of background, Mr. Chairman, I would point out that the United States is a member of other far smaller international conventions dealing with endangered species or dealing with species that are subject to regulation. For example, historically there have been two types of conventions, those that you might call catch oriented where the whole purpose is to control the harvest of species, such as the International Whaling Convention, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Convention, et cetera, and we have obviously in a few instances become parties to what you might call preservation oriented conventions such as those involving the migratory birds. There has never been any major worldwide convention until this one that dealt with trade in endangered species or nearly endangered species and you might well ask, well why is trade so important and why is trade a factor in a thing of this kind? Of course, the answer is that for many of the species we have been concerned with, both flora and fauna, the problems of trade are the ones that create the greatest problem of endangerment. I am not sure the committee, Mr. Chairman, is aware of some of the figures with respect to what the United States annually does in this whole area, but I thought it would be useful for the record just to point out that trade is a major factor in endangerment. Mr. Chairman, we have such examples as vicuna wool, crocodile and alligator skins, tiger skins, turtle shells, whale oil; feathers from |