Analysis Of The Implementation Of CITES And Relevant Advice

CITES(the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)is one of the most important international environmental agreement between governments.Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.Nowadays increasing animals and plants such as rhinos and elephants are endangered or extinct,but there is still a huge demand for wildlife in the international market.Annually,international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars and to include hundreds of millions of animal and plant specimens.The trade is diverse,ranging from live animals and plants to a vast array of wildlife products derived from them,including food products,exotic leather goods,timber,medicines and etc.Levels of exploitation of some animal and plant species are high and the trade in them,together with other factors,such as habitat loss,is capable of heavily depleting their populations and even bringing some species close to extinction.Therefore,the existence of CITES to ensure the sustainability of the trade and the exploitation is important in order to safeguard these resources for the future.China is a great country with rich resources of animals and plants and is also one of the important parties to the convention.It is particularly significant to activelyimplement the obligations and responsibilities under the convention,to protect the domestic and foreign species resources,and to avoid the losses caused by unreasonable trade management.Since became a party to the convention in 1981,China has done a lot of work in fulfilling its obligations and reinforcing international protection of wild life.However,compared with the developed countries in Europe and the United States,China still has some deficiencies in relevant domestic legislation and institutional Settings.In order to improve the level of protection in China,proposing countermeasures to the current situation of wild life trade and management is needed.ChapterⅠ elaborate the development process and the establishment purpose of CITES,describing the operation mechanism of the Convention in detail(including the mechanism about controlling,trade supervision,prevention,sanction and enforcement cooperation)for explaining how CITES operation mechanism works.ChapterⅡ pays attention to performance and practices of EU and US from the aspects of institution setup and legislation and analyzes the advantages and features in the practices,such as establish professional institution,emphasize the protection of habitat,etc.In addition,this chapter also studies the problems and solutions of CITES in international operation when in conflict with the purpose for encouraging trade of the WTO.ChapterⅢ studies the situation of the protection for animals and plants at the present stage in China,analyzes relevant implementation of CITES including institutional setting and legal system of China.Corresponding development countermeasures and views on the deficiencies of China’s performance and the protection of plants and animals are put forward.Advices are as follows:Improving the functions of the organization;strengthening work cooperation among multiple agencies;improving the efficiency of permits and certificates;operating electronic office mode;promoting mark system;emphasizing the intrinsic value of biology in legislation;strengthening the legal protection of habitats;attach importance to public participation system.