CITES@50 Reality Check 1: CITES Is Broke
The convention cannot deliver anything for wild species until the funding crisis is solved. For decades the CITES has been an ineffective regulator due to its impoverished state. Submissions to CITES CoP 20 detail that the contributions due to the CITES for 2025 are US$6.6 million, but to-date only $3.3 million have been received. That’s means another US$3.3 million are outstanding plus an additional $1.4 million in unpaid contributions from prior years. What makes this both tragic and ridiculous is that that the CITES trade is primarily for the luxury markets, with fashion and furniture being the biggest users of wild species after seafood. In 2016, a European Parliament Report acknowledged that “The wildlife trade is one of [...]