Learn about protecting all 21 species of horned lizards with Juan Carlos from our Mexico program at the CITES convention in Panama City.
Video Transcript:
Hi, I’m Juan Carlos Cantú. I’m with Defenders of Wildlife in Mexico. But right now I’m in Panama City at the CITES convention.
Well, today, what we saw were two proposals, one presented by the United States for one of the species of horned lizards in the U.S. that is also found in Mexico. And another proposal by Mexico for all 21 species of horned lizards. You can find them in Mexico, the United States, and one species you can also find in Canada.
And it was really, really exciting because there was this huge opposition to these proposals by the European Union.
And all of a sudden what happened was Europeans said nothing. So these proposals went through by consensus.There was a huge, huge amount of support.
Now, it’s very important because many of these species are threatened. International trade has been increasing for the past decade.
Right now, all of the species, all 21 species, are now in Appendix Two of CITES and that means there’s going to be a regulation of international trade and hopefully there’s going to be a decrease in illegal trade.
To be able to get this result we had to lobby really, really hard and we were able to get many, many countries in the EU to support the proposals of Mexico and the U.S. And that way we avoided the EU voting against this proposal and well, it passed by consensus.
Yes, totally thrilled. We have been working on these proposals for almost a year and a half with the U.S. and also with Mexico.
Please don’t buy horned lizards for pets. They are terrible pets.
These lizards are beautiful. Go see them in the wild. Take pictures of them in the wild. Don’t buy them as pets.
