Hundreds of animal species are at risk of extinction because wildlife trade restrictions are taking too long to come into effect, a major new study warns. Over a quarter of animals on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list—the world’s most seriously endangered—are not protected by CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). CITES is regarded as the primary international framework for preventing species extinction due to international wildlife trade. It came into force in 1975 in order to regulate trade in wildlife products, and can put into effect bans on sales of certain species or their body parts.
The research also revealed the long wait species have to gain recognition by CITES. Even among IUCN’s red-list species, 62 per cent of those protected by CITES had waited as long as 19 years for recognition or are still waiting to be listed up to 24 years after being first considered.
The researchers said the pattern of slow recognition by the convention was the same even for the most threatened species. The team collected data on 958 threatened species particularly targeted by the international wildlife trade, and looked at how they were classified by the IUCN and treated by CITES. They found 28.2 per cent of species on the IUCN red list were not listed by CITES, a discovery the researchers said was “striking”.
But the research also revealed 36 per cent of the species studied were already protected by CITES before making them on the Red List. The authors suggested this could be because CITES had information not available to the IUCN, or “could be due to staffing and other resource constraints at the IUCN”. However, they added, “We consider the situation in which CITES protection is delayed relative to the Red List finding to be a more severe problem than the reverse situation.”
本时文内容由奇速英语国际教育研究院原创编写,未经书面授权,禁止复制和任何商业用途,版权所有,侵权必究!(作者投稿及时文阅读定制请联系微信:400-1000-028)