CITES

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CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is an international agreement between governments, drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The text of the convention was agreed upon in 1973, and CITES entered into force on 1 July 1975. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival and it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 33,000 species of animals and plants. In order to ensure that the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was not violated, the Secretariat of GATT was consulted during the drafting process.

Only one species protected by CITES, the Spix's Macaw, has become extinct in the wild as a result of trade since the Convention entered into force (but see case studies in Hutton and Dickinson and Stiles for further discussion of the role CITES has played in the fate of particular species).

Background and operation

CITES is one of the largest conservation agreements in existence. Participation is voluntary, and countries that have agreed to be bound by the Convention are known as Parties. Although CITES is legally binding on the Parties, it does not take the place of national laws. Rather it provides a framework respected by each Party, which must adopt their own domestic legislation to implement CITES at the national level. Often, domestic legislation is either non-existent (especially in Parties that have not ratified it), or with penalties incommensurate with the gravity of the crime and insufficient deterrents to wildlife traders. As of 2002, 50% of Parties lacked one or more of the four major requirements for a Party: designation of Management and Scientific Authorities; laws prohibiting the trade in violation of CITES; penalties for such trade; laws providing for the confiscation of specimens.

The text of the Convention was finalized at a meeting of representatives of 80 countries in Washington, D.C., United States, on March 3, 1973. It was then open for signature until December 31, 1974. It entered into force after the 10th ratification by a signatory country, on July 1, 1975. Countries that signed the Convention become Parties by ratifying, accepting or approving it. By the end of 2003, all signatory countries had become Parties. States that were not signatories may become Parties by acceding to the Convention. As of 21 April 2009, 175 States had become Parties to the Convention with Bosnia and Herzegovina being the latest.

Funding for the activities of the Secretariat and COP meetings comes from a Trust Fund derived from Party contributions. Trust Fund money is not available to Parties to improve implementation or compliance. These activities, and all those outside Secretariat activities (training, species specific programmes such as Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants - MIKE) must find external funding (often from NGOs and bilateral aid).

Although the Convention itself does not provide for arbitration or dispute in the case of noncompliance, 30 years of CITES in practice has resulted in several strategies to deal with infractions by Parties. The Secretariat, when informed of an infraction by a Party, will notify all other parties. The Secretariat will give the Party time to respond to the allegations and may provide technical assistance to prevent further infractions. Other actions the Convention itself does not provide for but that derive from subsequent COP 11 resolutions may be taken against the offending Party. These include:

• Mandatory confirmation of all permits by the Secretariat
• Suspension of cooperation from the Secretariat
• A formal warning
• A visit by the Secretariat to verify capacity
• Recommendations to all Parties to suspend CITES related trade with the offending party
• Dictation of corrective measures to be taken by the offending Party before the Secretariat will resume cooperation or recommend resumption of trade

Bilateral sanctions have been imposed on the basis of national legislation (e.g. the USA used certification under the Pelly Amendment to get Japan to revoke its reservation to hawksbill turtle products in 1991, thus reducing the volume of its exports).

Infractions may include negligence with respect to permit issuing, excessive trade, lax enforcement, and failing to produce annual reports (the most common).

Regulation of trade

CITES works by subjecting international trade in specimens of listed species to certain controls. These require that all import, export, re-export and introduction from the sea of species covered by the Convention has to be authorized through a permitting system.

Each Party to the Convention must designate one or more Management Authorities in charge of administering the licensing system and one or more Scientific Authorities to provide advice about the effects of any proposed trade on the status of the species.

Appendices

Roughly 5,000 species of animals and 28,000 species of plants are protected by CITES against over-exploitation through international trade. Each protected species or population is included in one of three lists, called Appendices (explained below). The Appendix that lists a species or population reflects the extent of the threat to it and the controls that apply to the trade.

Species may be split-listed meaning that some populations of a species are on one Appendix, while some are on another. Some people argue that this is risky as specimens from a more protected population could be ‘laundered’ through the borders of a Party whose population is not as strictly protected. The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is currently split-listed, with all populations except those of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe listed in Appendix I. Those of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are listed in Appendix II. Listing the species over the whole of its range would prevent such ‘laundering’ but also restricts trade in wildlife products by range States with good management practices.

Species are proposed for inclusion in or deletion from the Appendices at meetings of the Conference of the Parties (CoP), the next of which is in Qatar in January 2010. Species may be proposed for listing (or deletion) by any Party, whether or not it is a range State and may be included despite objections by range States if there is sufficient (2/3 majority) support for the listing. These discussions are usually among the most contentious at CoP meetings.

There has been increasing willingness within the Parties to allow for trade in products from well-managed populations. for instance, sales of the South African white rhino have generated revenues that helped pay for protection. Listing the species on Appendix I increased the price of rhino horn (which fueled more poaching), but the species survived wherever there was adequate on-the-ground protection. Thus field protection may be the primary mechanism that saved the population, but it is likely that field protection would not have been increased without CITES protection.

Appendix I

Appendix I, about 800 species, are species that are threatened with extinction and are or may be affected by trade. Trade in wild-caught specimens of these species is illegal (permitted only in exceptional licenced circumstances). Trade of captive bred animals or cultivated plants of Appendix I species are considered Appendix II specimens, with concomitant requirements (see below and Article VII). The management authority of the exporting country must make a non-detriment finding, assuring that export of the individuals will not adversely affect the wild population. Any trade in these species requires export and import permits. The Management Authority of the exporting state is expected to check that an import permit has been secured and that the importing state is able to care for the specimen adequately. Notable animal species include the red panda (Aluris fulgenis), gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), the chimpanzee species (Pan spp.), tigers (Panthera tigris subspecies), Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), leopards (Panthera pardus), Jaguar (Panthera onca), Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), some populations of African Elephant (Loxodonta africana), the dugong and manatees (Sirenia), and all Rhinoceros species (except some Southern African subspecies populations).

Appendix II

Appendix II, about 32,500 species, are species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but may become so unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival. In addition, Appendix II can include species similar in appearance to species already listed in the Appendices. International trade in specimens of Appendix II species may be authorized by the granting of an export permit or re-export certificate. In practice, many hundreds of thousands of Appendix II animals are traded on an annual basis. No import permit is necessary for these species under CITES. A non-detriment finding and export permit are required by the exporting Party.

Examples of species listed on Appendix II are the American black bear (Ursus americanus), Hartmann's mountain zebra (Equus hartmannae), African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus), green iguana (Iguana iguana), queen conch (Eustrombus gigas), Mertens' Water Monitor (Varanus mertensi), bigleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and Lignum Vitae "ironwood" (Guaiacum officinale).

Appendix III

Appendix III, about 170 species, are species that are listed after one member country has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling trade in a species. The species are not necessarily threatened with extinction globally. In all member countries trade in these species is only permitted with an appropriate export permit and a certificate of origin.

Examples of species listed on Appendix III and the countries that listed them are the two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) by Costa Rica, African civet (Civettictis civetta) by Botswana, and the alligator snapping turtle (Macrochelys temminckii) by the USA.

Amendments and reservations

Amendments to the Convention must be supported by a two-thirds majority and can be made during an extraordinary meeting of the COP if one-third of the Parties are interested in such a meeting. The Gaborone Amendment (1983) allows regional economic blocs to accede to the treaty. Reservations (Article XXIII) can be made by any Party with respect to any species, which considerably weakens the treaty (see [1] for current reservations). Trade with non-Party states is allowed, although permits and certificates are recommended to be issued by exporters and sought by importers.

Notable reservations include those by Iceland, Japan and Norway on various baleen whale species and those on Falconiformes by Saudi Arabia.

Shortcomings and concerns

General limitations about the structure and philosophy of CITES include: by design and intent it focuses on trade at the species level and does not address habitat loss, ecosystem approaches to conservation, or poverty; it seeks to prevent unsustainable use rather than promote sustainable use (which generally conflicts with the Convention on Biological Diversity), although this has been changing (see Nile Crocodile, African elephant, South African white rhino case studies in Hutton and Dickinson 2000). It does not explicitly address market demand . Funding does not provide for increased on-the-ground enforcement (it must apply for bilateral aid for most projects of this nature).

By design, CITES regulates and monitors trade in the manner of a "negative list" such that trade in all species is permitted and unregulated unless the species in question appears on the Appendices or looks very much like one of those taxa ... then and only then, trade is regulated or constrained. Because the remit of the Convention covers millions of species of plants and animals, and tens of thousands of these taxa are potentially of economic value, in practice this negative list approach effectively forces CITES signatories to expend limited resources on just a select few, leaving many species to be traded with neither constraint nor review. For example, recently several bird classified as threatened with extinction appeared in the legal wild bird trade because the CITES process never considered their status. If a "positive list" approach were taken, only species evaluated and approved for the positive list would be permitted in trade, thus lightening the review burden for member states and the Secretariat, and also preventing inadvertent legal trade threats to poorly-known species.

While many developing countries have been eager to join CITES, the annual costs of staffing and maintaining a CITES office and an effective presence at the biennial CoP gatherings remain unaffordable for many signatory nations. In practice, these offices and staff are nearly always the same as those that license, permit, and collect fees for hunting, trade, and protection of wild plants and animals. Because these wildlife trading fees often represent a significant source of these CITES offices' operational budgets, the structure of CITES creates a direct conflict of interest between these offices and the resources they manage. Moreover, the CITES Secretariat itself is largely dependent on signatories' offices for determinations on whether the trade in a given species is "non-detrimental." Consequently, this structure for information gathering and decision making at both the national and Secretariat level is inherently biased in favor of trade over protection.

Specific weaknesses in the text include: it does not stipulate guidelines for the 'non-detriment' finding required of national Scientific Authorities; non-detriment findings require copious amounts of information; the 'household effects' clause is often not rigid enough/specific enough to prevent CITES violations by means of this Article (VII); non-reporting from Parties means Secretariat monitoring is incomplete; and it has no capacity to address domestic trade in listed species.

Suggestions for improvement in the operation of CITES include: more regular missions by the Secretariat (not reserved just for high profile species); improvement of national legislation and enforcement; better reporting by Parties (and the consolidation of information from all sources-NGOs, TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network and Parties); more emphasis on enforcement-including a technical committee enforcement officer; the development of CITES Action Plans (akin to Biodiversity Action Plans related to the Convention on Biological Diversity) including: designation of Scientific/Management Authorities and national enforcement strategies; incentives for reporting and timelines for both Action Plans and reporting. CITES would benefit from access to Global Environment Facility (GEF) funds-although this is difficult given the GEFs more ecosystem approach-or other more regular funds. Development of a funding mechanism similar to that of the Montreal Protocol (developed nations contribute to a fund for developing nations) could allow more funds for non-Secretariat activities.

On July 15, 2008, the Committee that oversees the administration of the convention between meetings of all the Parties granted China and Japan permission to import elephant ivory from four African government stockpiles, the ivory being sold at a single auction in each country. The amounts to be sold comprise approximately 44 tons from Botswana, 9 tons from Namibia, 51 tons from South Africa, and 4 tons from Zimbabwe. The Chinese government in 2003 acknowledged that it had lost track of 121 tons of ivory between 1991 and 2002.

See also

• Environmental agreements
• Wildlife Enforcement Monitoring System
• Wildlife conservation
• Wildlife management
• Wildlife smuggling
• Animal protection
• Conservation

External links

• CITES
• USCITES.gov U.S. Delegation to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

Member countries (Parties)

• Chronological list of Parties
• Alphabetical list of Parties

Lists of species included in Appendices I, II and III (i.e. species protected by CITES)

• Explanation of the Appendices
• Number of species on the Appendices
• Species lists (Appendices I, II and III)