It’s exactly one month until the opening of the 19th World Wildlife Conference and the CITES Secretariat has published its final recommendations on the 52 proposals that will be presented to this year’s meeting. The proposals all relate to species that have been put forward for changes to the regulations that govern their international trade. The CITES Secretariat has looked in detail at each of the proposals and is providing guidance and recommendations designed to help the Parties to CITES as they consider the position that they will take for each of the proposals.
Every three years, CITES holds a meeting of the Conference of the Parties. It is the Convention’s ultimate decision-making body and this year’s CoP 19 is taking place in Panama from November the 14 – 25th. The Convention has near universal take-up from the countries of the world. There are now 184 Parties (including the European Union) and each and any of them is entitled to put forward proposals to the CoP for the addition of a species to the CITES lists (Appendices) or movement of a species within the Appendices.
This year, 52 proposals were put forward and the Secretariat has examined and analysed each one. The Secretariat’s experts also consulted external experts in order to make their final recommendations as informative as possible for the Parties as they consider their positions.
There are nearly 600 species under consideration at CoP19 including marine species such as sharks and rays, more than 200 tree species, reptiles such as crocodiles, caiman and lizards, iconic species of rhino, elephant and hippos… turtles, frogs and several species of fish and all species of orchids.
The World Wildlife Conference is taking place in Panama City from November 14 to 25. The livestream of proceedings will be available via cites.org and the Secretariat’s 134 page assessment of the 52 proposals is available through this link: https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/cop/19/doc/E-CoP19-89-01.pdf
For more information on CITES CoP19 – https://cites.org/eng/cop19