At the end of 2025, representatives from 185 countries will convene in Uzbekistan to discuss the fate of sharks, African hornbills, hyenas, vultures, palm trees and other threatened species. The group’s decisions will, in part, decide the survival and the future of widely traded fauna and flora as they vote whether to set limits on or bar the international trade of these species and their parts, including fins, heads and skins. This will be the 20th meeting of signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES), one of the world’s oldest conservation treaties. These “Conference of the Parties” (CoP) discussions, held once every three years, will convene from Nov. 24 to Dec. 5 in Samarkand. They offer an opportunity for the world to rein in the unsustainable, multibillion-dollar wildlife trade, both legal and illegal. For species like the elephants, rhinos, tigers and numerous others, trade is the greatest threat to their long-term survival. The United States has traditionally been a leader in conservation, affording and securing protections to species at risk, including those exploited by trade. But this year, the country’s role seems to have weakened as a leader at CITES: It has sponsored only four proposals for consideration at the upcoming CoP, the lowest in the last 10 CoPs — 25 years. In total, 51 proposals are up for discussion to regulate or ban the international commercial trade of wildlife and its products. For the first time, none of the U.S.-backed proposals support…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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