International trade and the survival of mammalian and reptilian species.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 34995106.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abh3442 and PMC identifier 8741183.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) bans international trade in species threatened with extinction. We investigate the effects of these bans on species’ endangerment, as assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Our analysis exploits changes in CITES bans between 1979 and 2017. We find that CITES bans lead to subsequent improvements in mammalian species’ IUCN status, relative to species in which trade was not banned. These effects are primarily due to improvements in the status of commercially targeted species. On the other hand, CITES bans lead to deteriorations in reptilian species’ IUCN status. We find that major spikes in trade volume occurred in anticipation of the bans on reptilian species but not in anticipation of those on mammalian species.