CITES Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Illegal trade in endangered wildlife and flora is having a significant negative impact on the world’s biodiversity. To try and reduce this impact, the World Conservation Union signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). After ten years of negotiations, the text of CITES was finally agreed at a meeting of representatives of 80 countries in Washington D.C., on March 3, 1973. It entered into force on July 1, 1975. Today, CITES has been endorsed by over 166 countries. The aim is to “protect endangered species…from overexploitation by regulating or prohibiting their international trade.” This is done by subjecting selected species to certain controls and regulations, including a ban on the trading of live animals or body parts.

Appendix I of CITES bans the commercial trade of over 800 endangered species. Among the 167 Members Species, those usually threatened with extinction include the slipper orchids, leatherback turtles, cuscuses, and gorillas.

Appendix II permits trade in approximately 32,500 listed species, but requires an export permit verifying the species were legally obtained, and the contents are not detrimental to the survival of the species. While not threatened with extinction, these species nonetheless face real challenges to their survival if unregulated trade continues. Appendix III permits trade but requires exporters to declare that their shipments were acquired legally.

The trade of species listed in CITES Appendices II and III (1995-99), included over 1.5 million live birds, almost 300 tons of caviar, 1 million pieces of coral and 21,000 hunting trophies.

Since its inception, the CITES Secretariat has forged strategic alliances with other parties. For example, there is the Memorandum of Understanding between the CITES Secretariat and the Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. TRAFFIC is a wildlife trade monitoring network that assists in the implementation of CITES.

Wildlife trade is an inherently political issue, and is worth billions of dollars each year. Consequently, CITES often attracts contention, especially in light of the complex social and economic consequences that arise from the imposition of regulations on the trade of certain species. For example, following the slaughter of an estimated 700,000 elephants in 10 years (for ivory products), there was a 50 percent drop in their population numbers. CITES placed an international ban on the trade in ivory and other elephant products in September 1989. While the CITES ban on trade in elephant ivory is credited with helping elephant species recover and decreasing poaching, the remaining stockpiles (prior to the 1989 ban) offered economic opportunities to nation states that the ban prevented from exploiting. This factor, combined with rising elephant numbers, led CITES to relax its ban on the sale of ivory tusks in 2002. This has caused dismay in conservation circles, as there has since been an upsurge in illegal trafficking of elephant ivory.

Critics of CITES argue that trade is an ineffective tool for species conservation, there are no mechanisms to account for the volume of illegal trade that still occurs, nor any mechanisms to protect species that are not listed in any of its Appendices.

Nonetheless, CITES provides some protection to over 30,000 species of flora and fauna and continues to play a central role in ensuring that international cooperation is achieved to protect certain species from overexploitation and ultimately extinction.

Bibliography:

A. Green, Animal Underworld: Inside America‘s Black Market for Rare and Exotic Species (New York, 1999);
E. Hansen, Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy (Pantheon Books, 2000);
G. Hemley (ed.), International Wildlife Trade: A CITES Sourcebook (World Wildlife Fund, Island Press);
International Traffic Network, The Smuggling of Endangered Wildlife Across the Taiwan Strait: An Investigation (U.K, TRAFFIC International, 1991);
International TRAFFIC Network, Rhino Progress? The Response to CITES Resolution Conf. 14 (TRAFFIC, 1997);
CITES, Equivalent Permit-Issuing (Management) Authority and Scientific Authority Directory (CITES Secretariat, 1994);
Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Appendices I, II, and III to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (UNEP, 2005);
Swaziland Government, CITES Conservation of and Trade in African and Asian Rhinoceros (Swaziland, 2004).