GEORGE BUSH’S emissaries were smiling and radical Greens were ecstatic. Only the Japanese looked glum. After months of gloom at environment meetings across the globe, last week’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Chile was hailed as “a great victory” for the world’s wildlife.
For the first time, CITES tried to lay down the law on wildlife “commodities”, giving protected status to commercially important ocean fish and rainforest trees. In doing so, the body best known for its fitful efforts to protect land mammals from poachers last week staked a claim to being the world’s conservation policeman…
