Role of WWF and CITES

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), founded in 1961 and headquartered in Gland, Vaud, Switzerland, is an international non-governmental charitable trust — formerly named the World Wildlife Fund — dedicated to wilderness preservation and to reducing humanity's impact on the environment; since 1998 it has published its Living Planet Report every two years. WWF's stated vision is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth, by conserving the world's most ecologically important regions, protecting and restoring species and their habitats, strengthening local communities' ability to conserve the natural resources they depend on, and ensuring that the value of nature is properly reflected in decisions made by individuals, communities, governments and businesses alike. CITES — the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora, also known as the Washington Convention — is the complementary legal instrument covered in this section: a multilateral treaty protecting endangered plants and animals, drafted from a resolution adopted at a 1963 meeting of IUCN members, opened for signature in 1973, and brought into force in July 1975. Its central purpose is to ensure that i …