20 Major Facts About The CITES: The CITES is an international agreement to which states and regional economic integration organizations adhere voluntarily. It was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the IUCN. Here are the list of 20 major facts about the CITES.
20 Major Facts About The CITES
1. The full form of CITES is Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).
2. The CITES is also known as the Washington Convention.
3. The CITES is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of international trade.
4. The CITES was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature).
5. The CITES was established on 3 March 1973 and entered into force on 1 July 1975.
6. The aim of the CITES is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
7. The CITES regulates the international trade of over 38,000 species of plants and animals.
8. The CITES Secretariat is administered by The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The headquarter of UNEP is located at Nairobi, Kenya.
9. The CITES Secretariat is located at Geneva, Switzerland. The capital of Switzerland is Bern. The Swiss Franc is the currency of Switzerland.
10. The Conference of the Parties (CoP) is held once every 3 years. CoP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention and comprises all its parties.
11. The location of the next Conference of the Parties (CoP) is chosen at the close of each CoP by a secret ballot vote.
12. The CITES Committee (Animals Committee, Plants Committee, and Standing Committee) hold meetings during each year that does not have a CoP, while the Standing committee meets also in years with a CoP.
13. The Animals and Plants Committees have sometimes held joint meetings. Their joint meeting was held in March, 2022 in Dublin, Ireland, and in May, 2014 in Veracruz, Mexico.
14. There are three working languages of the CITES are English, French, and Spanish. All documents of CITES are made available in these languages.
15. The CITES is legally binding on the Parties (Those countries that have agreed to be bound by the convention are known as Parties), it does not take the place of national laws.
16. The CITES provides a framework respected by each Party, which must adopt their own domestic legislation to implement CITES at the national level.
17. As of 2022, The CITES has 184 parties, including 183 states and the European Union.
18. There are four types of trade are recognized by CITES: Import, Export, Re-Export (export of any specimen that has previously been imported), and introduction from the sea (transportation into a state of specimens of any species which were taken in the marine environment not under the jurisdiction of any state).
19. World Wildlife Day has been celebrated on the 3rd of March every year since 2013. The date chosen coincides with the day of the CITES, which was signed in 3 March 1973.
20. The CITES categorizes species into 3 appendices (Appendix I, II, and III) based on the level of protection they require.
Appendix I lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants. e.g. – Gorilla, Sea Turtles, Most lady slipper orchids, and Giant Pandas.
Appendix II lists species that are not necessarily now threatened with extinction but that may become so unless trade is closely controlled. e.g.- American Ginseng, Paddlefish, Lions, American Alligators, Mahogany, and many Corals.
Appendix III is a list of species included at the request of a Party that already regulates trade in the species and that needs the cooperation of other countries to prevent unsustainable or illegal exploitation. e.g.- Map Turtles, Walruses, and Cape Stag Beetles.
List of the meetings of CoP (Conference of the Parties)
| Meeting | Place | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| CoP 1 | Bern, Switzerland | 2 – 6 November 1976 |
| CoP 2 | San Jose, Costa Rica | 19 -30 March 1979 |
| CoP 3 | New Delhi, India | 25 February – 8 March 1981 |
| CoP 4 | Gaborone, Botswana | 19 – 30 April 1983 |
| CoP 5 | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 22 April – 3 Mary 1985 |
| CoP 6 | Ottawa, Canada | 12 -24 July 1987 |
| CoP 7 | Lausanne, Switzerland | 9 -20 October 1989 |
| CoP 8 | Kyoto, Japan | 2 -13 March 1992 |
| CoP 9 | Fort Lauderdale, United States | 7 – 18 November 1994 |
| CoP 10 | Harare, Zimbabwe | 9 – 20 June 1997 |
| CoP 11 | Nairobi, Kenya | 10 – 20 April 2000 |
| CoP 12 | Santiago de Chile, Chile | 3 – 15 November 2002 |
| CoP 13 | Bangkok, Thailand | 2 – 14 October 2004 |
| CoP 14 | The Hague, Netherlands | 3 – 15 June 2007 |
| CoP 15 | Doha, Qatar | 13 – 25 March 2010 |
| CoP 16 | Bangkok, Thailand | 3 – 14 March 2013 |
| CoP 17 | Johannesburg, South Africa | 24 September – 5 October 2016 |
| CoP 18 | Geneva, Switzerland | 17 – 28 August 2019 |
| CoP 19 | Panama City, Panama | 14 – 25 November 2022 |
| CoP 20 |
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