Sri Lanka joins India, Bangladesh, and Senegal in effort to move Indian star tortoise from Appendix II to Appendix I under CITES due to suspected high numbers of illegal trade, CITES may reject
“The argument that will be made is the sheer volume of trade,” he (Sumanth Bindumadhav) told Mongabay. “The Indian states of Telangana and Andhra [Pradesh] alone ship out about 55,000 tortoises every year on average, and that’s a solid argument.”
…Despite the recommendation of the CITES Secretariat to reject the proposal, it’s the countries that are party to the convention that will ultimately decide on all proposals being made. That means the recommendation “is in no manner the final word,” said Manmohan Singh Negi, the director of wildlife preservation at the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
“The biggest impact of moving this species to Appendix I will be a higher level of vigilance in more countries than the current lot,” Bindumadhav said.
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Photo from Mongabay.com.
