[MUSIC] Okay, good day everyone. Today, I'm going to talk to you about trade in animals, and animal products. Trade in animals and animal products is important, because it is a conduit that connects humans, animals, and ecosystem interfaces around the world. So, for example, people in Switzerland could be exposed to pathogens found in ecosystems in South America, or other parts of the world, through trade in animals and animal products. And I hope to show you in this presentation, that trade forms a large and important network that moves not only animals and animal products, but also pathogens, around the world. So I'm going to talk to you today about trade in food producing animals and their products, trade in non-food producing animals, and I'll also talk a little bit about illegal trade in food of animal origin. So, I'll begin with trade in food animals and animal products. So, world production of food animals is absolutely huge. In 2013, the FAO estimated there were close to a billion pigs in the world, 1.4 billion cattle, 2 billion sheep and goats, and that we produce somewhere around 50 billion broiler chickens every year. And food animals are part of ecosystems. So for instance, they graze in pastures where they can contact wildlife, insects, birds, open, unprotected water. And even in intensive production, they can still, when they're housed, contact insects, rodents, sometimes birds. And the feed that's brought into these houses to feed them, can also bring in pathogens. And of course, animals carry microbes. Microbes are important parts of their gastrointestinal flora, respiratory tract flora, and the flora of their skin. Some of these are, of course, pathogenic, not only to animals, but also to people. So animals are, in fact, the perfect vehicle for pathogen transmission around the world. Trade in food animals and their products is also huge. The FAO has estimated in 2013, that there was somewhere around 260 million tons of meat exported around the world every year, and 89.6 million live food animals exported around the world every year. Trade is mostly by ship, and if you look at the network of world shipping routes, you can see that trade in food animals and their products is this vast, continuous, constantly changing network, that spans the globe, and actually connects almost every part of the world to all the rest of the world. And there have been many examples of pathogens that have been transmitted by food animals. For example, foot and mouth disease, African swine fever, classical swine fever, rinderpest, and recently we're concerned about the transmission of antimicrobial resistance genes in animals and animal products around the world. So it's not surprising, that the development of food animal standards, animal health standards, has largely been motivated by concerns about the transmission of these pathogens around the world by trading animals and their products. And in fact, international animal health governance falls under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization. So, countries that become members of the WTO, sign an agreement called the Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement. And under this agreement, they agree to base their national health measures on certain scientific base standards. It is the World Organization for Animal Health that sets these standards. Currently, it has 180 member nations, and member nations nominate delegates that work in different committees to set these animal health standards. It is important to know that these are just standards. There's actually no international law regulating the movement of food animals and animal products, it's only standards and recommendations and guidelines. However, many countries adopt these standards, and make them part of their national legislation. So, there's actually a clear connection between the World Trade Organization, and animal health legislation in many countries around the world. The European Union is a little bit different. The EU has a parliament that sits, and defines legislation to cover animal health, trade in animals, food safety, and other things. And countries that are members of the European Union, adopt those as laws as well. So, trade in food animals and animal products is a huge world wide network. However, it is regulated, and movement of pathogens across this network is regulated as well. Next I want to talk about trade in non-food animals. And here, I'm talking about trade, usually referred to as trade in exotic pets. Exotic pets are not so exotic, they just refer to pets that are not native to a particular region. There are no really good figures describing the size and the complexity of this network, but there are some estimates that are available. And they suggest that the network is actually quite large as well. So, for instance, a study in 2005, estimated that the world legal exotic pet trade was estimated to be worth between 21 and 24 billion US dollars per year. In another study, it was estimated that between 2000 and 2009, there were 1.48 billion exotic animals imported into the USA. The only legislation, or the only regulations worldwide, that cover these trade in non-food animals, is through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or the CITES, as it's referred to, C, I, T,E,S. It currently has 186 member states and provides some protection to about 35,000 species. And it only protects those animals that are listed as endangered species by the convention. CITES operates a licensing system in which the import and export of animals on this list are authorized by member nations through this licensing system. So, it maintains a database of endangered animal species movements. And in this database, there have been recorded movements for 585 different bird species, 484 different reptile species, and 114 different mammal species. It's important to remember that this convention only covers endangered species, it doesn't cover non-endangered species. And it does not do anything about the movement of pathogens across this network. And there are also illegal movements of animals and animal products, which we have no idea about. So legal, and illegal trade in exotic pets, is also a large and vast international, worldwide network, that connects ecosystem interfaces around the world, but movement of pathogens across this network is totally unregulated. So the last thing I want to talk about, is illegal trade in food of animal origin. So bush meat, is meat from hunted, indigenous, free-ranging wildlife that is often preserved in traditional ways. It's an important part of the culture and diet of many people around the world, especially people from developing countries. And when these people immigrate to new countries, they bring their culture with them. So even though they are living in a new culture, they are interested in eating the food they grew up with, and these foods remain important parts of their culture. When they go back to their old country to visit their family and friends, and then return to their new country, they sometimes bring some of these products back with them. And while this may seem to be trivial, it actually isn't. So, for a small country like Switzerland, for instance, in 2013, it was estimated that there were 8.6 tons of bush meat brought to the country by people returning to Switzerland on airplanes, through Swiss airports, and through Swiss customs. So, it's likely that this network is also a large network around the world, if you consider Switzerland compared to the other countries around the world. But it's illegal, it's totally unregulated, and there's no measures whatsoever for pathogen control on this network. So in closing, I hope that I've shown you that trade and animals and animal products forms a large and important network that effectively connects ecosystems around the world. Pathogen flow however, is regulated for only part of it, and much of it remains unregulated. Thank you very much. [MUSIC]