Has CITES had its day?

[Bobbie Ireland]

This piece goes back to April, but it is a worthwhile essay on the politics of international trade in endangered species... and politics, unfortunately, is very much to the fore...

Has CITES had its day?

VIEWPOINT: Mark Jones


Governments, conservationists and pro-trade groups have been trying to make what capital they can from their respective "victories" at [April's] meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). But, asks Mark Jones, is the 37-year-old convention successfully doing the job it was established to do?

CITES is mandated to ensure that international trade in wild animals and plants, or products derived from them, does not threaten their survival.

An impressive-sounding 175 parties (member countries) are committed to implementing various protection measures for some 5,000 species of animal and 28,000 plants.

Yet at times on the floor of [the April 2010] conference in Doha, Qatar, one had the impression that the arguments and outcomes had more to do with protecting commercial interests than protecting wildlife.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8606011.stm

[anneintoronto]

Yes, Bobbie, I'm afraid that organizations like CITES have seen much better days, and, when politics and international trade get into the same bed, there isn't a chance that they will be able to prevail...  They don't have the money or the backing, from enough people who really matter (ie the wealth, connected ones), to succeed...  What a sad world...and may god help the all vertebrates and the invertebrates!  None of them are safe, when human beings want to own them, profit from them! 

Anne in Toronto

[Bird Crazy]

and when rich people do finally want to change things you find out that its not that they care but that there is profit in it for them. and its not the way they live that will change but the way we live.They want to go on doing what they want.

(right Al)