US ivory expert questions science behind Cites decisions

BY Emmanuel Koro
A UNITED STATES-BASED ivory expert has dismissed fears that if the UN international wildlife trade regulating agency Cites uses socio-economic factors to determine the threat to any species, it will compromise “the ‘science’ applied to the analysis”.

The ivory expert, who manages the Los Angeles-based Ivory Education Institute, Godfrey Harris, argues that the “science” is pretty thin in much of what Cites does in any case and is only usually invoked to give assurances to donors of the quality of the agency’s decisions and the importance of its mission.

Harris’ thoughts on the quality of the science behind a lot of what Cites does was in response to a formal comment published in the April 2022 issue of the journal, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

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