Four species of iguanas from the Galápagos Islands have received the highest protection against international commercial trade at the ongoing summit of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The Galápagos land iguana (Conolophus subcristatus), Galápagos pink land iguana (C. marthae), Barrington land iguana (C. pallidus) and marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) are found only on the islands that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. All are threatened by climate change and invasive species.
Ecuador, which governs the Galápagos Islands, submitted two separate proposals to list the land iguana species and the marine iguana on CITES Appendix I, which prohibits all commercial international trade. Both proposals were accepted by consensus, without any opposition expressed by the parties to CITES, comprised of 184 countries and the European Union.
Previously, all four Galápagos iguanas were listed on Appendix II, meaning their legal trade was permitted, under strict import and export requirements. Recently, however, researchers found a suspicious rise in traded Galápagos iguanas, with export permits issued by countries where none of the species are native. Ecuador, the only country where the reptiles are found in the wild, has not issued any export permits for them, raising concerns about illegal trade.
All Galápagos iguanas are nationally protected in Ecuador, and removing them from the wild or selling them is illegal. But these reptiles fetch top dollar on the black market from reptile collectors and private zoos, and traffickers have been caught attempting to smuggle them from the islands.
CITES data show that in 2010, two Galápagos land iguanas and two pink land iguanas were exported from Mali to Switzerland. In 2012, Switzerland reported importing three marine iguanas from Mali. All seven individuals were labeled as “captive bred” in the export permits. From 2017-2023, Uganda reported the export of 64 Galápagos land iguanas, mainly to Southeast and East Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan.
“We know that a single notorious and long-known reptile smuggler, now based in Uganda, is the mastermind and hub for all illegal trade in Galápagos iguanas,” Sandra Altherr, co-founder of the German NGO Pro Wildlife, told Mongabay by text message. With the current decision to list all four species in Appendix I, she said, there’s a hope that “his dirty business will be stopped.”
At the CITES summit deliberations, Uganda expressed its strong support for both proposals, citing the need to stymie the illegal trade in the iguanas originating from the country and elsewhere.
“Today’s decision to uplist the endemic Galápagos iguanas, to Appendix I shows that countries are willing to take precautionary action in the face of increasing threats — from climate change to invasive species to illegal trade. This is exactly the kind of leadership the world needs to safeguard irreplaceable wildlife,” Susan Lieberman, vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a press release.
Banner Image: A marine iguana. Image by kjohnston406 via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).
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