Geneva (AFP)

An international conference on the environment has been working since Saturday in Geneva on strengthening trade rules for ivory, rhinoceros horns and other plants and animals threatened with extinction, while a million species are at risk disappear.

For 12 days, thousands of delegates from more than 180 countries, environmental and political leaders, will discuss 56 proposals in Geneva to change the level of protection afforded to wild animals and plants by the Convention on the Protection of Wild Animals and Plants. international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES).

"To continue as before is no longer an option," CITES Secretary General Ivonne Higuero said at the beginning of the conference, warning that "the dangerous decline of nature is unprecedented".

This treaty, created more than 40 years ago, sets the rules for the international trade of more than 35,000 species of wild fauna and flora. It also has a mechanism that allows it to impose sanctions on countries that do not respect these rules.

The Geneva meeting follows the publication of a UN report in May announcing that a million species are at risk of extinction.

"My fear is that we are (...) today really on the brink," Higuero told AFP before the conference, hoping that delegates will agree on "changes in depth".

Inger Andersen, who heads the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), also expressed this sense of urgency on Saturday: "We are losing species at a rate never seen before".

She nonetheless expressed confidence in the ability of the CITES treaty to introduce sustainable trade rules for endangered species. "We need to find a viable balance between humanity and nature," she said.

- "To change direction" -

The devastation of many species through poaching and illegal trade will be under the spotlight during the meeting, as will the challenges posed by wildlife crime on the internet.

This time again, the conference, which meets every three years, will consider several proposals concerning African elephants.

After decades of poaching that pushed the elephant population from several million in the mid-twentieth century to some 400,000 in 2015, the ivory trade was virtually banned in 1989.

Several Central, West and East African states are calling for a total ban on all ivory sales, while several southern African countries are demanding the right to sell registered ivory stocks belonging to them, saying that this could satisfy demand that encourages poaching.

Animal advocates say that previous ivory stock sale experiences have actually boosted demand and encouraged poaching, because of the difficulty in distinguishing between legally harvested defenses and others.

One of the 56 proposals discussed at the CITES summit is aimed at combating the networks of traffickers, who are trying to shift elephant ivory to mammoth ivory, a species extinct for thousands of years.

The future of white rhinos decimated by intense poaching, American crocodiles and several species of sharks and rays are also on the agenda. And for the first time, delegates will look into the case of giraffes, whose populations have declined by some 40% over the last three decades.

"The future of biodiversity is at stake but (...) we have a unique opportunity to change course," said Andersen.

© 2019 AFP