Mock

This week is all about international policy on wildlife crime and the trade in endangered species, which is covered by a global convention and ratified by the vast majority of countries (except the likes of North Korea, South Sudan and Kiribati).

We had a fun exercise of conducting a mock session of one of the global meetings during which member states are expected to reach consensus on questions such as whether rules around trade in certain species should be tightened, based on the threats facing them.

In the exercise I was representing the NGO lobby on the question of whether the hippopotamus should be upgraded to Appendix I of the convention. In real life NGOs are shoved at the back of conference halls and state representatives are given the floor as much higher priority. Mirroring the actual debate on this hippo issue, those playing the part of West African nations (where the hippo is highly threatened) disagreed with East and southern African nations (where populations are stable). When I was allowed to speak I made an intervention, suggesting a compromise solution that was adopted. A mock session it may have been, but maybe a career in diplomacy beckons.

In the evening I met up with Mike and Beth, two old friends who have recently moved to Nairobi from Sussex. I met them when we were part of the same trip to Africa in 2004, a trip during which they got together and then married by the side of a loch in Scotland in 2010. We had a fantastic dinner and overdue catch-up.

Getting anywhere in Nairobi does tend to involve a large amount of traffic.