Nations meet to protect wildlife against global trade

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Decimated by over-exploitation and smuggling, hundreds of endangered species ranging from orchids to elephants will get a hearing in The Hague starting Sunday as 171 nations gather to regulate the international trade in wildlife.

Orangutans sold on the black market as exotic pets, wild tigers ground up into Chinese medicines, sharks scalped to make soup, rare hardwoods hewn into designer coffee tables -- the global appetite for wild flora and fauna is seemingly inexhaustible.

Some 2500 national delegates, monitored by a small army of conservationists and wildlife advocates, are set to debate dozens of proposals over the next two weeks aimed at protecting threatened species.

In some cases, safeguards that helped plants and animals recover from near extinction may be eased or removed.

Since coming into force in 1975, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, has afforded some measure of protection to approximately 33,000 species, more than 80 percent of them in the plant kingdom.

During its first meeting in three years, it will consider measures that could determine the survival of African elephants, several species of gazelle, Ugandan leopards, great apes and a plethora of wildlife from the sea.