The illusion and delusion of the supposed CITES effectiveness must end. While a modern and well-funded CITES is desperately needed, the convention cannot survive in its current state because it has long failed in its stated objective of protecting endangered species from overexploitation through international trade.

Over decades the CITES has undergone a death by a thousand cuts. The neglect of the convention itself means its activities are primarily performative in nature. Its time is up, it must be modernised and made fit for purpose or be shut down. Maintaining the status quo is just selling out wild species and gutless.

The most important document submitted to CITES CoP20 is Doc. 14, that admits, “The current situation [in the CITES] has brought us to a critical point, where addressing the increasing demands and expectations of every issue simultaneously has already gone beyond the capability of the Convention’s operational framework. The current mode of work is no longer viable or sustainable.”. If this is not addressed, the document states, “we may have expanded beyond capacity [to deliver] the official mandate of the convention, which is to regulate trade in species and focus on topics for which no other appropriate competent bodies exist.”, continuing, “Urgent action is therefore required to ensure that the essential function of the Convention remains effective into the future”.

Nature Needs More commends the CITES leadership for admitting this. The fact that the CITES leadership has made this admission should be seen as positive. It opens the door for those who, for whatever reason, have shown a deep discomfort in exposing the weaknesses of the current system to step up and help with the needed modernisation.

Tragically and tellingly, it seems that the CITES leadership also knew that its courageous admission will not lead to the type of support that it truly needs. Document CoP20 Doc.14, pre-empted the lack of adequate response by proposing the use of a “prioritisation matrix” and to explore “innovative ways” to, “focus to the core work [and] enabling us to use our scarce resources more effectively”.

A ‘prioritisation matrix’ and ‘innovative ways to use scarce resources’ is the last thing the CITES needs! This will only continue the death by a thousand cuts to the convention itself and prolong the collective selling out of the world’s remaining wonders, as they continue to be nothing more than merchandise.

What can be done?

Even though CITES is within the 150-day submissions period, this emergency situation warrants the creation of an intersessional working group to study proposals to address the modernisation of CITES, so it can cope with current and future global trade volumes. The budget for this intersessional working group would be significantly less than US$1million, for a trade valued conservative at US$350billion annually.

Wildlife trade players like to remind everyone that the CITES is a convention of its time, namely the 1970s. It was opened for signature in 1973 and came into force in 1975.

So, what was ‘its time’? What was happening during 1973 – 1975? To help realise how old the CITES is, let’s name a few of the events from this point in history.

  • An OPEC oil embargo triggers the 1973 energy crisis.
  • The Sydney Opera House in Australia is opened after 14 years of construction work.
  •  The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang is discovered at Xi’an, China.
  • Swedish pop group ABBA’s song “Waterloo” wins the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
  • Watergate scandal – US President Richard Nixon announces his resignation.
  • A skeleton from the hominid species Australopithecus afarensis is discovered and named Lucy.
  • Margaret Thatcher becomes Britain’s first female leader of the conservative party.
  • Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft.
  • The Khmer Rouge begins the Cambodian genocide.
  • The Fall of Saigon signals the end of the Vietnam War.

History is the operative word because these are events discussed in history classes, yet the CITES paper-based processes have barely changed because the regulator missed the digital revolution.

Add to this that when CITES was conceived in the 1960s when the international trade in wild flora and fauna was not just smaller, it was tiny compared to today. Total global exports, for all trade, were worth US$318billion in 1970 compared to US$32trillion in 2024, up from US$22trillion in just 4 years. The poor quality of data for the legal global trade in wild species means a precise value is difficult to calculate. Conservative estimates put its worth at over US$350billion annually, more than the overall value of all global trade when the CITES was conceived.

To make matters worse, the CITES, together with global conservation agencies, has not shown any interest in adapting the convention to the massively changed circumstances in global trade and the exploitation of wild species for profit. The CITES has had only one strategic review in its 50-year history, which was back in 1994. The supposed effectiveness of the convention is mostly based on wishful thinking by those attending CoPs and benefiting from the status quo.

Nature Needs More put the need for a strategic review of the convention on the table in the run up to CoP18 and lobbied hard for it to be on the agenda of CoP19. The conservation organisations we approached during this time were fearful of a strategic review, none of the signatory countries we approached were prepared to put forward a submission for a comprehensive review of the CITES and the Standing Committee later dismissed it as unnecessary. Now we have document CoP20 Doc. 14, in which the CITES leadership is forced to admit the depth of the crisis the regulator is in. The loss of US government core funding for CITES will make a bad situation worse.

The flaws in CITES in relation to funding, NDFs, lack of tracking and data collection, missing enforcement and total absence of a proof of sustainability in any of its trades are becoming ever more obvious. Only the creation of an intersessional working group to study proposals to address the modernisation of CITES can pull the CITES back from the brink. As already mentioned, the budget for this would be significantly less than US$1million, for a trade valued conservative at US$350billion annually.

If we genuinely believe that we are rational animals, then it follows that we wouldn’t live in a home obviously decaying around us and not do something about it if we could.

By ignoring the flaws in the CITES regulator, this is exactly what we have done with the only real home we have. 

The conservation world’s illusion and delusion of CITES effectiveness must end. If they can’t muster the courage at CITES CoP20 to call for the modernisation of the regulator then the question must be asked, is it time for the CITES to go? To those who will no doubt say, if the CITES wasn’t there it would be worse, given the scale of biodiversity loss, the question must be, just how could it be any worse?