Open AccessSpeciesism and the Wildlife Trade: Who gets Listed, Downlisted and Uplisted in CITES?
Author(s) -
Alison Hutchinson,
Nathan Stephens-Griffin,
Tanya Wyatt
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
international journal for crime, justice and social democracy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.36
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 2202-7998
pISSN - 2202-8005
DOI - 10.5204/ijcjsd.1945
Subject(s) - cites , wildlife trade , wildlife , iucn red list , overexploitation , threatened species , endangered species , wildlife conservation , geography , critically endangered , international trade , ecology , fishery , business , biology , habitat
Wildlife faces a number of threats due to human activity, including overexploitation from excessive and/or illegal trade. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is the main international legal instrument to address such overexploitation. However, not all species threatened by excessive trade are protected by CITES, leading to criticism that it is an instrument for the preservation of exploitation as opposed to the protection of wildlife (Goyes and Sollund 2016). This article explores whether CITES classifications can be said to perpetuate speciesist thinking. We highlight which species are more likely to receive protection by analysing which species are listed and how some species move between the CITES Appendices and comparing this to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) classifications for traded wildlife. We find that a species’ market value, charisma, and survival status form a complex set of characteristics that lead (or not) to the continual trade of some species, even though they are facing extinction from human consumption.