Жабайы флора мен фаунаны сақтау туралы халықаралық келісімшарт

Multilateral treaty dedicated to flora and fauna

CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of international trade. It was 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 convention was opened for signature in 1973 and CITES entered into force on 1 July 1975. Its aim is to ensure that international trade (import/export) in specimens of animals and plants included under CITES does not threaten the survival of the species in the wild. This is achieved via a system of permits and certificates. CITES affords varying degrees of protection to more than 38,000 species. as of 2022, the Secretary General of CITES is Ivonne Higuero.

CITES is one of the largest and oldest conservation and sustainable use agreements in existence. There are three working languages of the Convention (English, French and Spanish) in which all documents are made available. 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. Originally, CITES addressed depletion resulting from demand for luxury goods such as furs in Western countries, but with the rising wealth of Asia, particularly in China, the focus changed to products demanded there, particularly those used for luxury goods such as elephant ivory or rhinoceros horn. As of 2022, CITES has expanded to include thousands of species previously considered unremarkable and in no danger of extinction such as manta rays or pangolins.

Over 40,900 species, subspecies and populations are protected under CITES. Each protected taxa or population is included in one of three lists called Appendices. The Appendix that lists a taxon or population reflects the level of the threat posed by international trade and the CITES controls that apply. Taxa may be split listed meaning that some populations of a species are on one Appendix, while some are on another. The African bush 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. There are also species that have only some populations listed in an Appendix. One example is the pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), a ruminant native to North America. Its Mexican population is listed in Appendix I, but its U. S. and Canadian populations are not listed (though certain U. S. populations in Arizona are nonetheless protected under other domestic legislation, in this case the Endangered Species Act). Taxa are proposed for inclusion, amendment or deletion in Appendices I and II at meetings of the Conference of the Parties (CoP), which are held approximately once every three years. Amendments to listing in Appendix III may be made unilaterally by individual parties.

Appendix I taxa are those that are threatened with extinction and to which the highest level of CITES protection is afforded. Commercial trade in wild sourced specimens of these taxa is not permitted and non commercial trade is strictly controlled by requiring an import permit and export permit to be granted by the relevant Management Authorities in each country before the trade occurs. Notable taxa listed in Appendix I include the red panda (Ailurus fulgens), western gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), the chimpanzee species (Pan spp. ), tigers (Panthera tigris subspecies), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), some populations of African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana), and the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana).

Appendix II taxa are those that are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival. Appendix II taxa may also include species similar in appearance to species already listed in the Appendices. The vast majority of taxa listed under CITES are listed in Appendix II. Any trade in Appendix II taxa standardly requires a CITES export permit or re export certificate to be granted by the Management Authority of the exporting country before the trade occurs. Examples of taxa listed on Appendix II are the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), the American black bear (Ursus americanus), Hartmann's mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae), green iguana (Iguana iguana), queen conch (Strombus gigas), emperor scorpion (Pandinus imperator), Mertens' water monitor (Varanus mertensi), bigleaf mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), lignum vitae (Guaiacum officinale), the chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius), all stony corals (Scleractinia spp. ), and American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius).

Appendix III species are those that are protected in at least one country, and that country has asked other CITES Parties for assistance in controlling the trade. Any trade in Appendix III species standardly requires a CITES export permit (if sourced from the country that listed the species) or a certificate of origin (from any other country) to be granted before the trade occurs. Examples of species listed on Appendix III and the countries that listed them are the Hoffmann's two toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) by Costa Rica, sitatunga (Tragelaphus spekii) by Ghana and African civet (Civettictis civetta) by Botswana.

Under Article VII, the Convention allows for certain exceptions to the general trade requirements described above.

CITES provides for a special process for specimens that were acquired before the provisions of the Convention applied to that specimen. These are known as "pre Convention" specimens and must be granted a CITES pre Convention certificate before the trade occurs. Only specimens legally acquired before the date on which the species concerned was first included in the Appendices qualify for this exemption.

CITES provides that the standard permit/certificate requirements for trade in CITES specimens do not generally apply if a specimen is a personal or household effect. However there are a number of situations where permits/certificates for personal or household effects are required and some countries choose to take stricter domestic measures by requiring permits/certificates for some or all personal or household effects. In the case of commercial trade of Appendix I taxa, captive bred or artificially propagated specimens may be traded as if they were Appendix II. This reduces the permit requirements from two permits (import/export) to one (export only). In the case of non commercial trade, specimens may be traded with a certificate of captive breeding/artificial propagation issued by the Management Authority of the state of export in lieu of standard permits.

Standard CITES permit and certificates are not required for the non commercial loan, donation or exchange between scientific or forensic institutions that have been registered by a Management Authority of their State. Consignments containing the specimens must carry a label issued or approved by that Management Authority (in some cases Customs Declaration labels may be used). Specimens that may be included under this provision include museum, herbarium, diagnostic and forensic research specimens. Registered institutions are listed on the CITES website.

Amendments to the Convention must be supported by a two thirds majority who are "present and voting" 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. Trade with non Party states is allowed, although permits and certificates are recommended to be issued by exporters and sought by importers. Species in the Appendices may be proposed for addition, change of Appendix, or de listing (i. e., deletion) by any Party, whether or not it is a range State and changes may be made despite objections by range States if there is sufficient (2/3 majority) support for the listing. Species listings are made at the Conference of Parties. Upon acceding to the Convention or within 90 days of a species listing being amended, Parties may make reservations. In these cases, the party is treated as being a state that is not a Party to CITES with respect to trade in the species concerned. Notable reservations include those by Iceland, Japan, and Norway on various baleen whale species and those on Falconiformes by Saudi Arabia.

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. In fact, CITES listings have been demonstrated to increase financial speculation in certain markets for high value species. Funding does not provide for increased on the ground enforcement (it must apply for bilateral aid for most projects of this nature). 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. In another instance, the United States initially stopped exports of bobcat and lynx hides in 1977 when it first implemented CITES for lack of data to support no detriment findings. However, in this Federal Register notice, issued by William Yancey Brown, the U. S. Endangered Species Scientific Authority (ESSA) established a framework of no detriment findings for each state and the Navajo nation and indicated that approval would be forthcoming if the states and Navajo nation provided evidence that their furbearer management programs assured the species would be conserved. Management programs for these species expanded rapidly, including tagging for export, and are currently recognized in program approvals under regulations of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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. 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. 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.

During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 CEO Ivonne Higuero noted that illegal wildlife trade not only helps to destroy habitats, but these habitats create a safety barrier for humans that can prevent pathogens from animals passing themselves on to people.

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 future 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. Additional information about the documented trade can be extracted through queries on the CITES website.