(a) The department’s consultative Wildllife Forum does not exclude key stakeholders in the wildlife conservation and protection sector nor are we aware of any such exclusion. The Wildllife Forum was established in 2008 based on the following understanding:
The Term of Reference (ToR) for the Wildlife Forum was developed and adopted on 12 June 2008. The objective of the Wildlife Forum is to work as a collective towards promoting:
The ToR provides that representative bodies of the organised national wildlife and national hunting industries, and of related fields of endeavour, who were not yet members of the forum after the adoption of the ToR, may apply to become members, upon which the forum will decide to award such body membership.
On 1 July 2009, the Wildlife Forum agreed that the following information should be submitted by interested bodies/organisations:
(b) The consultative Wildlife Forum operates within the scope of the ToR developed and accepted on 12 June 2008. As mentioned in response to question (a) the ToR provided for other interested and affected representatives or industries that could contribute to the objectives of the forum to apply to participate in the forum.
(c) The Department of Environmetal Affairs has embarked on the process of re-positioning the Wildlife Forum to, in future, serve as a structured interdepartmental/industry platform with a mandate to specifically direct the implementation of the projects flowing from the Biodiversity Economy Lab, as well as future identified projects relevant to the wildlife industry, based on the Biodiversity Economy orientation.
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