Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

73 their skins and as food, pets and collectibles. The increased ease of transporting and selling these animals is just another example of the consequences of globalization for the environment. According to the WWF, illegal trafficking and commercialization of wildlife is one of the fastest ways to drive a species to extinction. The international community responded to the need to regulate the trade in wildlife by establishing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which came into effect in 1975. Over 5,000 species of animals and 30,000 species of plants are currently protected by CITES, whose aim is to ensure that the international trade of wildlife does not pose a threat to its survival. More than 175 countries, including Chile, are party to CITES. In general terms, this convention seeks to regulate, rather than prohibit, the cross-border transfer of species facing conservation issues. These regulations apply to live animal and plant specimens, as well as all their parts and derivatives, such as preserved animals, skins, bones, feathers, skulls, trophies, tissue samples and other biological materials, pharmaceutical products and ivory. The regulations on international trade imposed by CITES only apply to species included in any of its three lists of species. In other words, specimens not included in the lists, and consequently not covered by the Convention, are not subject to the restrictions established by CITES but are subject to each country’s internal trade regulations and zoo/phytosanitary regulations. For example, in Chile, the administrative authorities responsible for this are the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG, wildlife), the National Forest Corporation (CONAF, terrestrial flora), and the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA, hydrobiological fauna), which rigorously enforce domestic laws related to CITES. In contrast, some countries like Thailand, Indonesia and India are criticized by environmental groups for having weak internal regulations. Some non-governmental environmental organizations advocate for going beyond CITES and aim to establish international controls for the protection of animals within countries. However, nations have resisted such an idea because of the alleged invasion of their sovereignty such controls would represent. On the other hand, wildlife trade has also provoked a counterreaction from animal-rights advocacy groups, which, in turn, show some interesting characteristics of environmental awareness in a globalized society. Examples of this can be seen in campaigns to protect various species from commercial exploitation, such as “fur is murder”, “save the dolphins”, and “save the whales”, in order to shift the demand for wildlife-derived goods