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<\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan\u2013\u2013<\/strong>Elephants,\u00a0 rhinos,\u00a0 giraffes,\u00a0 white-tipped sharks,\u00a0 peregrine falcons,\u00a0 and the Vantara captive wildlife sanctuary in Gujarat state,\u00a0 India,\u00a0 were among the big winners at the twentieth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES].<\/p>\n CITES,\u00a0 a global treaty brought into effect by the United Nations on July 1,\u00a0 1975,\u00a0 is by far the biggest and most influential regulator of international wildlife commerce,\u00a0 including 185 member nations.<\/p>\n Endangered saiga antelopes,\u00a0 native to the central Asian plains,\u00a0 may have been the big losers at the CITES meeting,\u00a0 called CoP20 for short,\u00a0 the first ever held in central Asia.<\/p>\n The peregrine falcon was the only other animal native to host nation Uzbekistan that was spotlighted during the proceedings.<\/p>\n <\/a> Herd of female saigas in Kazakhstan.<\/strong><\/em> The 11-day CoP20 conference concluded on December 5,\u00a0 2025 at the Silkroad Samarkand Expo Center in Samarkand,\u00a0 at almost the opposite end of from the last remaining Uzbekistan saiga population.<\/p>\n Saiga antelope,\u00a0 once found across Asia and in the Pleistocene epoch,\u00a0 even in parts of what are now Alaska and Canada,\u00a0 now live mostly in three widely separated herds in Kazakhstan,\u00a0 north of Uzbekistan,\u00a0 with smaller numbers in Mongolia and Russia.<\/p>\n A small, reintroduced saiga antelope population may also survive in the Russian-occupied\u00a0Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve\u00a0in Kherson,\u00a0 Ukraine.<\/p>\n Four days into CoP20,\u00a0 the CITES delegates voted to allow Kazakhstan to export up to 11 tons of saiga antelope horns per year for the next three years.<\/p>\n The New York City-based Wildlife Conservation Society \u201cwarned that these quotas\u2014equivalent to at least 25,000 male saiga per year\u2014pose a risk to the species,\u201d\u00a0 said Wildlife Conservation Society publicist Nat Moss.<\/p>\n <\/a> Saiga antelope in Kazakhstan.<\/strong><\/em> More than a million saiga antelope roamed Asia toward the end of the 20th century,\u00a0 but climate change and uncontrolled market hunting brought a population crash so severe that the Convention on Migratory Species,\u00a0 a sub-group of CITES,\u00a0 proposed an Appendix II or \u201cendangered\u201d listing for saiga antelope at CoP12 in 2002.<\/p>\n Warned United Nations Environmental Program division of environmental conventions deputy director Robert Hepworth at that time,\u00a0 \u201cThe hunting pressure on these animals has gone far beyond what the populations can sustain.\u201d<\/p>\n Outbreaks among saiga antelope of several infectious diseases subsequently caused the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to \u201cRed List\u201d the species as \u201cCritically Endangered.\u201d<\/p>\n But saiga antelope in recent years seemed to be recovering.<\/p>\n Recounted Moss in a November 18,\u00a0 2025 Wildlife Conservation Society media release,\u00a0 \u201cThe International Union for the Conservation of Nature \u2018Red List\u2019 status of the saiga antelope has shifted from \u2018Critically Endangered\u2019 \u00a0to \u2018Near Threatened.\u2019\u00a0 But the saiga has a long history of boom and bust population cycles, \u00a0and a precautionary approach is imperative.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Anant Ambani.\u00a0 (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n The first high-profile controversy before CoP20,\u00a0 actually addressed a day before CoP20 actually convened,\u00a0 was a review of a September 2025 report from the CITES Secretariat asking India to \u201cnot issue any further import permits\u201d because of alleged irregularities involving acquisition of animals by Vantara.\u201d<\/p>\n Vantara was described by the Reuters news service as \u201ca 3,500-acre zoo in Gujarat state,\u00a0 Inida, \u00a0run by the philanthropic arm of the Reliance conglomerate led by Mukesh Ambani and his family,\u201d\u00a0 reputedly the most affluent family in Asia.<\/p>\n The CITES Secretariat report was contradicted on September 15,\u00a0 2025 by a two-judge Indian Supreme Court panel.<\/p>\n Justices Pankaj Mithal and P.B. Varale \u201ccleared Vantara of wrongdoing,\u201d \u00a0Reuters reported,\u00a0 based on the findings of a special investigative team that included former Supreme Court Justice J. Chelameswar;\u00a0 R.S. Chauhan, former Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand & Telangana High Courts; \u00a0former Mumbai police commissioner Hemant Nagrale; and Anish Gupta, \u00a0additional commissioner of customs.<\/p>\n <\/a> Map of Vantara.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Profiling Vantara in January 2025,\u00a0 and revisiting the Vantara controversies in March 2025,\u00a0 ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong> concluded that the biggest issue seems to be that Vantara is operating much more like a sanctuary,\u00a0 as defined by the Association of Sanctuaries,\u00a0 American Sanctuary Association,\u00a0 and Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries,\u00a0 than like a zoo as recognized by CITES.<\/p>\n (See Vantara: billionaire-built zoo\/sanctuary has conservationists in a dither<\/a> and Why is Vantara hiring flacks & lawyers instead of just explaining itself?<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n The two ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong> reports were introduced as evidence during the Indian Supreme Court hearings.<\/p>\n The concept of a \u201csanctuary\u201d for captive wildlife does not exist in most nations,\u00a0 nor in the language of CITES.<\/p>\n The Indian delegation to CoP20 \u201caffirmed the country\u2019s commitment to CITES compliance,\u201d\u00a0 Reuters summarized,\u00a0 but \u201cBelgium and at least one conservation group, \u00a0the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance, \u00a0pushed to suspend [wildlife] exports to India until concerns were addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n The CITES Secretariat recommendation to that effect \u201cwas reversed,\u201d\u00a0 according to Reuters, \u00a0\u201cafter many countries including India, \u00a0the United States, \u00a0Japan and Brazil said the measure was premature, \u00a0with some also saying there was no evidence of illegal imports into India.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Adam Cruise, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/em> The most publicized and perhaps most bitterly fought issues at CoP20 were applications by various southern African nations to permit exports of elephant ivory,\u00a0 rhino horn,\u00a0 and giraffe body parts as trophies.<\/p>\n The elephant ivory and rhino horn issues have roiled every CITES Conference of the Parties since CoP7 moved both African and Asian elephants to Appendix I,\u00a0 forbidding all commerce in elephants and elephant parts.<\/p>\n Reported Journal of African Elephants<\/em> editor Adam Cruise on December 1,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 \u201cSouthern Africa\u2019s conservation story \u2013 the one the region has been selling internationally for years \u2013 finally met a hard wall\u201d at CoP20.<\/p>\n \u201cThe collapse of ivory, rhino horn and giraffe trade proposals at CITES CoP20 was not a surprise,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise assessed.\u00a0 \u201cWhat was surprising is how thoroughly the region\u2019s long-standing justifications fell apart under scrutiny.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cThese were not strategic setbacks,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise explained.\u00a0 \u201cThey were systemic failures, \u00a0failures of argument, \u00a0failures of credibility, \u00a0and failures of a conservation model that has relied more on rhetoric than ecological reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Cruise called \u201cNamibia\u2019s ivory-sale gambit to offload 46 tons of stockpiled ivory on the international market, \u00a0rejected by almost 79% of parties, \u00a0the clearest signal yet that the world no longer buys the storyline of southern African exceptionalism.<\/p>\n \u201cProposals for fewer restrictions on rhino horn \u2013 one for white rhinos, another for black rhinos \u2013 were dispatched with equal force. \u00a0And a multicountry attempt to weaken giraffe protections also died quickly,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise recounted.<\/p>\n <\/a> Newborn black rhino at Taronga Western Plains zoo Australia.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em>(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cPolicy failure #1,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise enumerated,\u00a0 was that \u201cFor years, \u00a0southern African officials have pointed to apparently \u2018healthy\u2019 elephant and rhino populations as proof that their conservation systems justify trade.\u201d<\/p>\n However,\u00a0 Cruise pointed out,\u00a0 \u201cRhino numbers \u2013 especially in South Africa \u2013 have been maintained largely through coercive, \u00a0intervention-heavy, \u00a0quasi-agricultural models that include domestic markets, \u00a0dehorning, \u00a0sedation cycles, \u00a0intensive fencing, \u00a0and 24-hour armed guarding.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not ecological resilience,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise charged.\u00a0 \u201cIt is industrial wildlife management.\u00a0 And it is wildly expensive.<\/p>\n \u201cElephant numbers are similarly misrepresented,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise continued.\u00a0 \u201cConcentrations in some areas are touted as \u2018overpopulation,\u2019 \u00a0even when those same elephants are restricted by fences, \u00a0pumped water points, \u00a0and spatial constraints that artificially inflate local densities while obscuring regional declines and poaching hotspots.<\/p>\n \u201cCITES parties saw through this,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise said.\u00a0 \u201cPopulation numbers, \u00a0detached from ecological context, \u00a0no longer persuade anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n This led Cruise to \u201cPolicy failure #2: \u00a0the \u2018sustainable use\u2019 narrative has become detached from ecological reality.\u201d<\/p>\n Cruise pointed to \u201cSouth Africa\u2019s catastrophic expansion of the captive lion breeding industry, built under the same \u2018sustainable use\u2019 mandate now being used to justify ivory and horn trade,\u00a0 even as lions have been all but extirpated from the South African wild.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n As an example of \u201cPolicy failure #3:\u00a0 misreading global politics,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise denounced \u201cA reliance on stockpiling ivory and horn, \u00a0as if they are stable financial assets, \u00a0ignoring the political and market realities that make those stockpiles effectively worthless on the legal market.<\/p>\n \u201cChina \u2013 once the primary consumer market \u2013 has since closed its ivory trade,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise pointed out.\u00a0 \u201cMost Asian states, \u00a0with the exception of Japan, \u00a0have adopted bans or strict restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cAfrican range states outside the south remain traumatized by the poaching waves of the 2000s and early 2010s. \u00a0There is no appetite for reopening markets. \u00a0No political interest in testing trade experiments again.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cPolicy failure #4,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise said,\u00a0 was \u201cignoring \u2013 or denying \u2013 the legacy of the 2008 ivory sale.\u00a0 The 2008 CITES-approved ivory sale, \u00a0in which southern African countries were authorized to sell more than 100 tons of ivory to China and Japan, \u00a0is still seen by many African and Asian nations as a prelude to widespread poaching.<\/p>\n \u201cParties who lost tens of thousands of elephants during the years that followed will not risk another legal ivory pathway \u2013 no matter how small, \u00a0how controlled, \u00a0or how isolated.<\/p>\n <\/a> (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n \u201cPolicy failure #5,\u201d\u00a0 Cruise wrote,\u00a0 is \u201ca conservation economy built on speculation, \u00a0not stability.\u00a0 Southern Africa has consistently argued that wildlife must pay for itself. But its preferred mechanism \u2013 consumptive commercial trade \u2013 has proven incapable of delivering reliable results.<\/p>\n \u201cTrophy hunting revenues are concentrated in a few operators rather than dispersed among communities. \u00a0Ivory sales have been politically dead for more than a decade. \u00a0And the giraffe proposal exposed how stretched the logic has become \u2013 attempting to justify regulatory weakening based on narrow, trade-driven incentives rather than ecological considerations.\u201d<\/p>\n Cruise hoped that CoP20 will bring a complete reassessment and rejection of the consumptive use conservation model that has now dominated southern African wildlife management for more than 65 years,\u00a0 historically promoted by the African Wildlife Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund.<\/p>\n <\/a> Whitetip shark.\u00a0 (Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n Oceanic whitetip sharks,\u00a0 elevated to Appendix I by CoP20 on November 27,\u00a0 2025,\u00a0 became the first shark species to receive top level CITES protection,\u00a0 \u201cwith a complete ban on international trade,\u201d\u00a0 exulted Wildlife Conservation Society director of shark and ray conservation Luke Warwick.<\/p>\n Recounted Wildlife Conservation Society publicist Nat Moss,\u00a0 \u201cOn the floor during the vote, 13 Parties [national delegations] spoke out on behalf of the oceanic whitetip proposal,\u00a0 championed by Panama,\u00a0 New Zealand, \u00a0Sri Lanka, \u00a0Oman, \u00a0Mauritania, \u00a0Pakistan, \u00a0Bahamas, \u00a0Gabon, \u00a0Djibouti, \u00a0Zimbabwe, \u00a0Canada, \u00a0Chile, \u00a0Lebanon, \u00a0and Fiji.<\/p>\n \u201cOceanic whitetips have suffered declines of more than 80-90% in just three generations,\u201d\u00a0 Moss explained,\u00a0 \u201cdriven by relentless fishing pressure and a lucrative illegal fin trade that far exceeds what appears in official records. \u00a0Appendix I listing will finally end international commercial trade, \u00a0remove incentives for illegal take, \u00a0and give this iconic species a fighting chance to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Galapagos Island iguanas. Three types of land iguanas (left).\u00a0 Marine iguana (right).<\/strong><\/em> World Animal Protection,\u00a0 formerly the World Society for Animal Protection [WSPA] on December 5,\u00a0 2025 rejoiced on the concluding day of CoP20 at the success of Ecuador,\u00a0 Kenya,\u00a0 and Uganda in winning \u201cthe transfer of the Gal\u00e1pagos land iguana and the Gal\u00e1pagos marine iguana to Appendix I,\u00a0 \u201cunderscoring the global significance of safeguarding the unique natural and cultural heritage of the Gal\u00e1pagos Islands, \u00a0a UNESCO World Heritage Site.\u201d<\/p>\n Also pronouncing himself \u201csuper excited\u201d over the outcome of CoP20 was wildlife artist Barry Kent MacKay,\u00a0 because,\u00a0 he explained to ANIMALS 24-7<\/strong>,\u00a0 \u201cCanada and the U.S. lost in their attempt to lower the amount of protection CITES provides for the peregrine falcon.<\/p>\nThe big loser at CITES Conference of the Parties 20 was the saiga antelope,\u00a0 native to host nation Uzbekistan<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nThe saiga saga<\/h2>\n
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(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nBoom-&-bust cycles<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nVantara<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nANIMALS 24-7 analysis introduced as evidence<\/h2>\n
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(Twitter photo)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nElephant ivory,\u00a0 rhino horn,\u00a0 giraffe trophies<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cThese were not strategic setbacks\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPolicy failure #1\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPolicy failure #2\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPolicy failure #3\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPolicy failure #4\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\u201cPolicy failure #5\u201d<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFirst sharks to get top level CITES protection<\/h2>\n
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(Beth Clifton collage)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\nThe day of the iguana<\/h2>\n