Governments Must Decide to 'Stop the Trade' in Wildlife

Assistant Secretary of State Claudia A. McMurray: China is the "world's largest market" for wildlife trafficking; the United States is second. (By Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)

Claudia A. McMurray took the helm of the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in February after spending two years as deputy assistant secretary for the environment. McMurray, 48, has also worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and on K Street at Van Scoyoc Associates, Patton Boggs and Kirkland & Ellis. She discussed her agenda with The Washington Post in an interview last month.

-- Juliet Eilperin

Q What do you see as your top priorities in your new job?

A There are people all over the place, all over the world, every day negotiating treaties and working on issues outside of treaties. So for me to come in and try to pick is difficult.

The two I would highlight as our highest priorities are the ones that are with us every day. Those are climate change and avian influenza. Those two issues are realities. They're important and complicated issues that we spend time on. Every day I spend time on them.

At $10 billion a year, international wildlife trafficking is the second-biggest black market in the world, after drug smuggling. I know you've focused on wildlife trafficking since taking office. Can you talk a little about that?

[Wildlife conservation] counts on individual countries to enforce [trafficking] restrictions. While a lot of countries do a really good job, there are a lot of countries that need help.

To take a step back, if you talk to most wildlife experts, what they say is they need more protected areas, the population pressures and industrialization that's really putting the most pressure on wildlife. When you ask what else is a problem, they say the illegal trade will take a lot of species, like for instance tigers or rhinoceros, and put them over the edge. Basically it's a tipping point for the species. That's why we decided to get involved in a partnership with other countries and basically the leading NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] around the world in trying to combat this problem.

We're looking at a couple of things. First of all, the most important thing for governments is a political commitment to stop the trade. . . . China, in particular, is one that we're interested in because that's the world's largest market.