Customs officers from five eastern African countries are due to meet in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha Monday to seek ways of curbing illegal trade in environmentally sensitive commodities, the United Nations said on Sunday.

The five-day meting to be attended by 40 experts from the customs and environment departments from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda will discuss the role of custom officials in monitoring and controlling flows of regulated chemicals at borders, said a statement from the Nairobi-based UN Environment Program ( UNEP).

The statement said the meeting will provide customs officers with training that covers several multilateral agreements.

"Cooperation on illegal trade is an excellent opportunity for international organizations and MEA (multilateral environment agreements) Secretariats to work together across different issue areas, as many of the problems and solutions regarding illegal trade of toxic chemicals, hazardous waste and endangered species are similar," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer.

It will be the first "Green Custom" workshop in Africa to be organized by the UNEP in collaboration with the World Customs Organization, Interpol, and the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, under the Green Customs initiative .

The statement said the workshop will encourage intelligence and information exchange, explore common threads in implementation of conventions by customs and coordinate activities to combat environmental crime.

Source: Xinhua