ABSTRACT
Some of the earliest environmental institutions addressed species conservation. Over time the logic for protecting species has evolved from ensuring sustainable levels of hunting so that species extraction can continue to protecting species – and then biodiversity more broadly – as beneficial or valuable in their own right. Some of the most important institutions for protecting species and biodiversity are the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on Migratory Species, and the Convention on Biological Diversity, all of which face daunting challenges but have managed to make some progress in protecting the resources they are attempting to conserve.
