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Having just returned from Washington DC and meetings with political representatives and advisors from both side of the aisle, what is evident is how little they know about the international commercial legal trade in wild species.

The pattern of the meetings was them bringing up elephants and rhinos, hunting trophies...

Businesses and their investors have had 50 years to prove they could curb their excess with voluntary governance systems. They have decisively failed. Even now, in the face of natural and heath disasters, the success of new iterations of voluntary self-governance is being exaggerated. It is time to call them...

It is time to accept that the current system of protecting species from over-exploitation by commercialising them is not working and hasn’t for some decades.

The problem with regulating the legal trade in wild species and protecting species from extinction through trade is that the underlying basic assumption of the...

A recent article in the Daily Maverick put all the same old pro-trade spin on opening the international trade in rhino horn. While there are plenty of counter arguments, again they have also been discussed for more than a decade, again-and-again.

So, with this response, I will only clear up...

Are 2,000 captive-bred, farmed rhinos of any value from either a commercial or conservation perspective?

John Hume, the owner of the world’s largest private rhino herd, is auctioning off his rhino farm, the starting bid being US$10 million. The question is, what are Hume’s rhinos really worth?

In recent weeks...

The International Institute for Sustainable Development’s (IISD) SDG Knowledge Hub recently invited a number of guest articles about the trade in wild species. John Scanlon (with co-authors) contributed a number of articles to explore the state of CITES 50 years after it was agreed.

Before taking a closer look at...

With the end of 2022 on the horizon, the Nature Needs More team would like to wish you a peaceful holiday with your family and friends. The coming weeks bring us all a time for reflection.

It has certainly been a big year for biodiversity, from CITES CoP 19 to...

“The wildlife trade is one of the most lucrative trades in the world. The LEGAL trade into the EU alone is worth €100 billion annually.”, stated a 2016 European Parliament Report. The choice of words bears repeating, “one of the most lucrative trades in the world”.

The trade is not...

From fins to teeth, skin and meat, the market for shark body parts is a grave concern, with shark finning being the most contentious issue.

The coverage of CITES CoP19 in the mainstream media has been thin on the ground, but one decision which did get attention was to list...

The CITES convention is rapidly approaching its 50-year anniversary; the convention was opened for signatures in 1973 and CITES entered into force on 1 July 1975. This milestone cannot pass without CITES providing all the evidence that it is fit-for-purpose, particularly given the looming extinction crisis.

CITES never included a...

Will 2022 Be Yet Another Year Of Lost Opportunities and Greenwashing?

Participating in CITES CoP 18, in Geneva in 2019, it was clear how broken the system regulating the international trade of the world’s most endangered species has become.

So, what could provide the leverage for change?

The only light...

In recent years the importance of demand reduction campaigns has come to the fore. Certainly, well researched and designed demand reduction campaigns have the potential to trigger behaviour change in consumers and drive down their desire to purchase rare species.

But the demand reduction strategy cannot succeed without an equally...