[David]

CITES is set up to govern the international trade of endangered species between countries or continents. The laws protecting plants/animals from being poached within a country is the responsibility of the individual government and people in that country. Therefore, it is not a question of the design of CITES laws that is inadequate to protect plants as CITES only governs movement of endangered species between countries.

The reasons why some say that CITES is ineffective is because of the massive coverage of its work worldwide and the fact that in each geographical location or country, the objectives and enforcement is depended on the enforcement agencies in that country. There is no way to monitor closely the enforcement in each of the 170 over countries under the CITES agreement. Their objecives and work are good and I think CITES has help a great deal in conservation todate. I believe if not for CITES, more species would have been extinct.