International Wildlife Trade body meets to discuss animals in trade
Born Free attends the CITES Animals Committee in Switzerland, to promote positive outcomes for wildlife protection.
The international trade in wild animals, and parts and products derived from them, is exacting an ever-increasing toll on the welfare of individual animals and the conservation of species.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, is the regulatory body responsible for ensuring that “international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species.”
From 12th-19th July 2024, the CITES Animals Committee met in Geneva, Switzerland, to consider various aspects of the trade in wild animals listed under the Convention, and to provide advice to its 184 member governments, or ‘Parties’, in order to ensure such trade is legal and sustainable.
Born Free’s Head of Policy Dr Mark Jones attended the meeting, alongside some 200 delegates from national governments, other wildlife protection organisations, trade bodies and others, to contribute to the discussions and to promote the best outcomes for wildlife protection.
The meeting considered more than 50 often long and complex documents, covering everything from the collaboration with other key conventions and institutions, the review of trade in CITES-listed species, the role of CITES in preventing the emergence of zoonotic pathogens which could result in future pandemics, the captive breeding of wild animals for commercial trading purposes, live animal transport, and the determination of whether international trade in CITES species is sustainable. The trade in specific wild animals including vultures, big cats, tortoises, amphibians, sharks and rays, marine ornamental fish, songbirds and corals, also featured.
As is always the case at such forums, the outcomes for wild animals were mixed, and being a technical advisory committee, the Animals Committee is not, in itself, a decision-making body. Nevertheless, there were some encouraging discussions on the role of CITES in preventing future pandemics with several countries calling for a Resolution on the issue.
The content of an online workshop on live animal transport was discussed, as was feedback on guidance on what constitutes a ‘suitably equipped’ destination for a wild CITES-listed animal in trade – these issues will continue to be subject to discussion and potential revision. The trade in long tailed macaques from breeding centres in Cambodia, Viet Nam and the Philippines will continue to be scrutinised in efforts to ensure there is no detriment to wild populations. Important progress was made towards improving the identification and protection of songbirds, the increasing trade in which threatens many already beleaguered species.
Many other issues remain unresolved or unsatisfactory. Plans to develop guidance for Parties on the establishment of quotas for leopard trophy hunts, agreed as much as five years ago, have been dropped, and the Convention will instead rely on the notoriously outdated and non-transparent information provided by those Parties themselves.
The seemingly endless process of determining whether tiger breeding facilities contribute to the conservation of wild tigers, when clearly, they do not, rolls on. Decisions on how CITES should deal with the fact that two different species of African elephants are now recognised, which could have implications for the longstanding threat of ivory trade, have been deferred.
While the Animals Committee is supposed to be a technical advisory committee, the discussions are all-too-often heavily politicised. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the huge profits that can be made from wildlife trade, and the powerful vested interests that exist in support of such trade.
Nevertheless, these meetings do give the wildlife protection community an important voice, one which has its strong supporters among some of the more progressive government delegations.
Born Free has worked at CITES for many years alongside our colleagues in the Species Survival Network and beyond, with the goal of limiting and further regulating wildlife trade to minimise the impacts it has on wildlife conservation and the health and wellbeing of animals and people.
We will continue to call for greater regulation and restriction on wildlife trade as we move towards the next big decision-making Conference of the Parties to CITES in 2025.