The 34th meeting of the CITES Animals Committee took place last week in Geneva, Switzerland. About 500 participants from governments and non-governmental organizations registered to attend the meeting. I represented Born Free USA here once again to promote the adoption of ambitious measures to protect wild animals and plants threatened by commercial trade.
About the CITES Animals Committee
The Animals Committee is an advisory body set up to provide scientific support and guidance to Parties and CITES bodies. After the adoption of three Resolutions, over 350 Decisions, and 76 species listings at the last Conference of the Parties in November 2025, the committee had a lot on its plate with no less than 50 issues on the agenda. Its decisions will affect the plight of a wide range of species, including corals, sharks and rays, eels, big cats, vultures, and amphibians, among many others.
A Stark Reminder about Climate Change
The first CITES Animals Committee meeting I attended was its 21st meeting, held in the very same large and poorly lit Geneva conference room in 2005. When we think of Switzerland, we think of snowy mountains, chilly lakes, and tidy cities, but the negotiations this week are being held during one of the hottest weeks ever recorded in Geneva with temperatures forecast to exceed 98°F. All meeting participants were warned ahead of time by the CITES Secretariat to prepare for the ambient temperature of meeting rooms to exceed comfortable levels, to bring water, and to dress accordingly. Surrounded by an increasing number of colleagues sweating in short sleeves as they talked about heat-related train delays or cancellations and regret booking hotel rooms without air conditioning where they struggle to sleep, it was impossible to ignore the reality of how human-created climate change has pushed the natural world to the limit. The urgent need for CITES to step up to the plate and play its role in preventing the extinction of threatened species felt all the more real and pressing.
The Trade in Wildlife and Plants Is Linked to Worsening Climate Change
Wild animals and plants play essential roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems through functions such as nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and seed dispersal. Conserving wild animals and wild spaces is therefore fundamental to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet CITES continues to broadly permit the commercial trade of many endangered and critically endangered species.
Deforestation across West Africa is accelerating climate warming and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, with consequences that extend far beyond the region. Despite this, commercially valuable West African timber species listed under CITES continue to be traded, while illegal timber trafficking remains widespread and largely unabated. Similarly, marine ecosystems continue to deteriorate with an increasing number of marine species on the brink of extinction, undermining their ability to act as major carbon sinks and reducing their contribution to climate regulation.
At a time when more than one million species face the risk of extinction in the coming decades because of human activities, including direct exploitation through commercial trade, there is no time to lose. The discussions that took place in these increasingly warm negotiation rooms matter. The extinction crisis is a planetary emergency and CITES cannot afford to ignore it.
CITES Must Act to Prevent Extinction
Preventing extinctions must become the central priority of CITES. Commercial trade in threatened species continues to drive the decline of wild animals and plants, yet the Convention is still falling short of its potential to address this crisis. Only a fraction of species threatened by international trade are currently protected under the treaty, and commercial trade remains permissible for many species classified as Endangered or even Critically Endangered. This cycle must be broken. CITES must strengthen its mandate and implementation to ensure that international trade no longer contributes to biodiversity loss, but instead supports the recovery and long-term survival of species in the wild.
Species on the brink of extinction don’t belong in commercial trade – let’s stop playing with fire and keep wildlife in the wild!
Keep Wildlife in the Wild,
Alice
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The Born Free USA Team
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