The Convention on Trade in Endangered Species holds its 19e international conference this week in Panama.
In the shadow of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, another conference of the parties is taking place, devoted to the international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (Cites). This meeting, which brings together until November 25 in Panama the representatives of 184 countries, opens an important sequence for the preservation of nature. In December, the COP15 on biodiversity will be held, initially planned in China but moved to Canada due to the Chinese strategy of “zero Covid”, the objective of which is to define a global framework to curb the erosion of life. . While the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the risks to humanity posed by the loss of wildlife species and their ecosystems, the threat is not as clearly identified in the minds of the general public as may be. be, for example, climate change.
Among the five causes explaining the vertiginous fall of animal and plant populations, trade – legal or illegal…