On 2-5 May 2007 the 54th General Assembly of CIC, "Passion for wildlife means caring for people" took place in Belgrade, Serbia.

On the request of Mr. Dieter Schramm, President of the International Council of Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), the Executive Secretary of AEWA gave a welcome address during the official opening ceremony which took place in the Serbian Parliament. In his welcome address, Bert Lenten stressed that over the years, CIC had adopted several decisions that were also of interest for the work of CMS and/ or AEWA, such as on phasing out lead shot for hunting in wetlands. However, he also pointed out that more could be done to implement these decisions. In order to approach the problem of lacking resources, Mr. Lenten suggested launching an initiative whereby each hunter contributes, for example, € 1 annually, which would, in Europe alone, lead to an amount of at least € 7 million.

CIC is one of the key partners of AEWA and has a permanent seat in the Technical Committee. Due to the strong working relationship between our organisations Bert Lenten's slightly critical feedback with regard to the actual achievements of CIC was well accepted. Mr. Schramm responded to the welcome address by saying that the comments made by Mr. Lenten were well placed particularly under the aspect that the CIC Board had already established a special working group that would look into the issue of fundraising.

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