Remarks at the official launch of ACRES (Asia-Pacific) in Australia: Julie Bishop

12/10/11

Remarks at the Official Launch of Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (Asia-Pacific) IN Australia

Parliament House, Canberra

E&OE…

Ladies and gentlemen. I do want to acknowledge Craig Kelly, our hardworking Member for Hughes, who is the host of the function today. Thank you for arranging this event Craig, and also Russell Matheson and Ken O’Dowd, my colleagues from the Party, and our guests here today including Mr Ng from Singapore.

Australia has long been committed to improving standards of animal welfare and long been committed to controlling the trade in species of flora and fauna threatened by extinction.

Australia has been a party to the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since 1976, and that convention seeks to protect, in varying degrees, about 33,000 species of plants and animals that are threatened.

We have also been a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity an international convention that seeks to encourage countries to implement action plans that would protect endangered species and habitats.

So we have a history of a commitment in this regard. That is why I was pleased to welcome the visit here today by Louis Ng and the establishment of ACRES (Asia-Pacific) in Australia.

I understand that the NGO was established in 2001 in Singapore, and that your biggest and possibly most significant project to date will be the protection of the protect of the Asiatic black bear in Laos and the cessation of the bile farming practice which has been established there.

Not only are you looking to protect the bears but you are also looking to protect the local economy because until we can replace the economic benefits from the bile farming it is difficult to change the attitudes towards it.

And I commend you on the program to seek to rescue and rehabilitate the bears and train the local workers to be part of the rehabilitation program. And of course that will have other economic spin-offs, including in tourism, and that is so vital.

Australia is a strong supporter of development in Laos, we would be among the top seven donors. Our focus in supporting Laos as it moves to an open-market economy is to support high quality education and basic education standards in Laos, and also to support rural livelihoods.

So our development objectives in our support in Laos of education and supporting rural livelihoods is very much complimented by the work that ACRES – Animal Concerns Research & Education Society – is seeking to do both in Laos and elsewhere.

I am delighted that you have chosen to establish an Australian chapter of ACRES (Asia-Pacific).

So with those few words I congratulate the Australian contingent who is here today, our Singaporean guests and I officially launch, here in the national capital, ACRES (Asia-Pacific) Australia.