CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments, drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1963 at a meeting of members of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival and it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 33,000 species of animals and plants.
Not one species protected by CITES has become extinct as a result of trade since the Convention entered into force in 1975 (but see case studies in and Stiles 2004 for more nuanced discussions of the role CITES has played in the fate of particular species).