CITES has helped several species recover, especially where controls on trade were combined with protection on the ground.Vicuña: this wild relative of the llama in the Andes has very fine, valuable wool. Hunting reduced it to fewer than 10,000 animals by the 1960s. It was listed in Appendix I in 1975, banning international trade, while Peru and other range countries protected it. Numbers have since risen to over 350,000. Some populations were moved to Appendix II, allowing legal trade in wool sheared from live animals, which gives local communities an income and a reason to protect the herds.African elephant: poaching for ivory roughly halved the population in the 1980s. In 1989 CITES moved the African elephant to Appendix I and banned the international ivory trade. Ivory prices and poaching fell, and populations in several countries, such as Kenya, began to recover in the 1990s.Crocodiles: many crocodile species were over-hunted for their skins. CITES controls, combined with regulated ranching (collecting wild eggs and rearing the young), have allowed species such as the Nile crocodile and the saltwater crocodile to recover in many areas, and several populations have been moved from Appendix I to Appendix II.These cases show what makes CITES effective:
• trade is a major threat to the species, so controlling it removes the threat;
• range countries enforce the rules and protect habitats;
• local people gain from sustainable use, so they value living animals.Moving a recovering species from Appendix I to Appendix II (downlisting) allows regulated trade that can help fund further conservation.
• trade is a major threat to the species, so controlling it removes the threat;
• range countries enforce the rules and protect habitats;
• local people gain from sustainable use, so they value living animals.Moving a recovering species from Appendix I to Appendix II (downlisting) allows regulated trade that can help fund further conservation.