International treaties governing trade in Endengared Species.

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Introduction:

There are 3 ways to put wildlife conservation on a legal footing.

1.- Establish laws for individual species

  – establish laws for a small group of species

2. – establish a treaty for a particular region

3.- Establish a World Wide Treaty

CITES:

Conservation on international trade in Endangered Species (of Wilf Fauna and Flora)

CITES was signed since 1973 and now there are over 110 nations who have signed. It prohibits International commercial trade in the rarest 600 species of animals and plants and requires licences from the country of origin for export of about another 200 groups. CITES deals with the problem of widespread, illegal trade of the threatened species.

The ligitimate trade is worth billions of dollars per year and although the illegal trade has been cut back by CITES it is still a big business. For example Japan still imports huge amounts of tortoise shells, crocodile skins, musk and more wildlife products although they have signed CITES.

The Biodiversity treaty Convention:

This was signed by almost all countries except the USA at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, this convention is mostly a deal giving Western countries access to biological resources (for ex. chemicals and genes from wild plants) in return for them transferring money and technical assistance towards the conservation and sustainable use of wild areas in the south.

The convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar convention)

This convention was signed by 64 countries. There are 542 wetland sites that have been included in the Convention’s list of Wetlands of International importance, signed in the 1970’s.

Author: Amne S.