Informant38

"Sustainable use"
...White House plans to allow the importation of hides, hunting trophies, and live specimens of endangered animals...

The USFWS{US Fish and Wildlife Service} proposal allows imports of animal parts or live specimens of endangered animals into the United States, so long as the importer says that some portion of the purchase price went into conservation efforts in the country of origin. In theory, this would give an economic incentive to protection of these species, but the proposal contains no provisions that would allow the FWS to verify these claims.
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...the proposal would invite fraud and even liquidation of endangered animals by developing nations desperate for hard currency.
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"Sustainable use" programs like the one proposed by the Bush Administration have proven largely unsuccessful at achieving real conservation, and frequently have the opposite effect. Resumption of a legal ivory trade in southern Africa, for example, appears to have led to increased elephant poaching not only in the exporting states, but elsewhere in Africa and Asia. In Kenya, this resurgence was accompanied by increased slayings of Maasai peoples in encounters with heavily armed poachers.
�Defenders of Wildlife/Common Dreams 10.07.03