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What is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species?
The international agreement known as CITES seeks to protect wildlife threatened by trade. By Rachel Fobar
PUBLISHED
What is CITES?
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora, often referred to as CITES (SIGH-teez), is an agreement
between governments that regulates the international trade of wildlife
and wildlife products—everything from live animals and plants to food,
leather goods, and trinkets. It came into force in 1975 with the goal of
ensuring that international trade does not threaten the survival of
wild plants and animals.
There are about 5,800 species of animals and 30,000 species of plants
protected by CITES currently. They’re categorized into one of three
appendices, depending on how at risk from trade they are.
As of June 2019, CITES had 183 party governments, which must abide by CITES regulations by implementing legislation within their own borders to enforce those regulations.
CITES was first conceived of at a 1963 meeting of the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on the
conservation status of wild animals and plants.
Appendix I includes species that are in danger of extinction because
of international trade. Permits are required for import and export, and
trade for commercial purposes is prohibited. Trade may be allowed for
research or law enforcement purposes, among a few other limited reasons,
but first the source country must confirm that taking that plant or
animal won’t hurt the species’ chance of survival. (This is known as a
“non-detriment finding.”) TheAsiatic lion and tigers are two species listed as Appendix I.
Appendix II includes species that aren’t facing imminent extinction
but need monitoring to ensure that trade doesn’t become a threat. Export
is allowed if the plant, animal, or related product was obtained
legally and if harvesting it won’t hurt the species’ chance of survival.
American alligators
are listed on Appendix II, for example. They were overhunted through
the 1960s for their skin, but their numbers are now on the rise. CITES
Appendix II listing helps ensure the alligator skin trade doesn’t become
a threat again.
Appendix III includes species that are protected in at least one
country, when that country asks others for help in regulating the trade.
Regulations for these species vary, but typically the country that
requested the listing can issue export permits, and export from other
countries requires a certificate of origin. While honey badgers are listed as of least concern
by the IUCN, their Botswana population is on CITES Appendix III because
of concerns that they would be exploited in other African countries for
use in traditional medicine and as bushmeat.
What happens at CITES meetings?
Every two to three years,
CITES parties meet at what’s called the Conference of the Parties (or
“CoP”) to evaluate how the convention is being enforced. The purpose of
this two-week meeting is to consider new proposals for listing or
removing species from appendices, to debate other decisions and
resolutions about implementation of regulations, and to review
conservation progress.
Appendix changes, the main event at the CoP, are proposed if a
species is thought to need more—or less—protection from trade. For
example, in 2016, the proposal to increase protections for pangolins, scaly, armadillo-lookalikes that are among the world’s most trafficked mammals, by moving them from Appendix II to Appendix I passed almost unanimously.
Police Raid What is Possibly Europe's Largest Illegal Turtle FarmOfficials
seized more 1,100 turtles and tortoises from an alleged illegal
hatchery on the Spanish island of Majorca in 2018. Some of the species
found are prohibited from international commercial trade under CITES. Read the story here.
How effective is CITES?
CITES has plenty of critics.
Some say conservationists flock to the two-week meeting every few
years, fiercely debate the fate of endangered animals, and then go home,
patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Meanwhile, the
actual enforcement of the CITES regulations is left to the countries
themselves—some of which don’t have the resources or political will to
enforce regulations.
A 2019 analysis in the journal Science
found that in nearly two-thirds of cases, CITES protections lag after a
species is determined to be threatened by international trade. For
example, while pangolins were finally added to Appendix I in 2017, an
estimated million were trafficked between 2000 and 2013. Of the eight
species of pangolins, half are endangered or critically endangered. The
vast majority of animals that are in the wildlife trade are not protected by CITES.
If a party violates the convention, CITES can respond with sanctions,
which prevent a country from trading in CITES-listed species. But
countries are rarely sanctioned
and the process can become highly politicized. What’s more, because
CITES membership is voluntary, a country could simply leave CITES rather
than accept sanctions.
Still, some say regulations are an important first step. Before CITES existed, international wildlife trade was largely a free-for-all—while
individual countries tried to restrict the trade of threatened species,
illegally exported products could be legally imported into many
countries.
One success story CITES touts is the vicuña. In the mid-20th century, populations of the once-abundant llama relative had dwindled to about 10,000 animals
because commercial demand for its fur led to widespread poaching. But
after enacting conservation measures, including a CITES listing in 1975,
populations rebounded. Today, the vicuña’s conservation status is least concern.
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