CITES '92 and beyond

Abstract

Notes that the debate on the African elephant took up a significant amount of the CITES meeting in Kyoto, COP8, but did not dominate it as much as it had a the Luasanne meeting two years earlier. He notes that no species, such as the African elephant, which has a 'constituency' in the donation giving countries was downlisted, and notes the decisions were political rather than biological. He notes the apparen tendency to push species onto Appendix I and the difficulty with down-listing and discusses the presence of NGO lobbies before going on to review the structure of the Convention and then suggesting if CITES does not undergo some changes in itself it may not remain a viable system in the face of new aspects of balsnce such as those found present in the Convention of Biological Diversity and the Global Environment Facility.