ABSTRACT
CITES was drafted in the early 1970s. At that time, wildlife conservation was becoming a highly public and politically significant issue in many countries. Advocates of conservation increasingly saw their goal as the protection of wildlife from any form of consumptive use. While international trade lay at the root of a number of wildlife conservation problems, the aim of some people and organizations associated with CITES was to stop, rather than to control, that trade. Much has changed since then. A number of the Parties to CITES have recognized that international trade, if properly controlled, can create powerful incentives for conservation. The concept of using species sustainably, although long applied to game species around the world, has become more widely recognized as a potential conservation tool. These insights represent changes in the basic philosophy of wildlife conservation within CITES. While some have embraced those changes, however, others have opposed them bitterly.
