The future of elephants, rhinoceroses and other imperiled species such as sharks, turtles could be decided this month at an international meeting on wildlife trade regulation in Bangkok, Thailand.
Delegates from the 178 countries that have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known simply as CITES, are meeting now through March 14 and considering proposals to either increase or decrease protection for specific species prized in the world market and historically subjected to illegal poaching.
The summit comes at a period trade in ivory and other animal parts is skyrocketing, with growing demand from increasingly wealthy Asian countries, where such products have long been used for decorative and medicinal uses.
Statistics from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) say an estimated 30,000 African elephants are slaughtered annually for their tusks. Then, in 2012, 668 rhinos were killed by poachers in just South Africa, 50 percent more than in 2011. Rhino horns can fetch as much as $65,000 per kilogram on the black market.
With 128 rhinos already killed for their horns this year, 2013 is on track to be another record year.
Researchers suggest today's poaching rates could all but lead to the extinction of Africa's elephants and rhinoceroses within two decades. In 2011, the African western black rhino and Javan rhinoceros of Vietnam were declared extinct, mainly because of poaching.
Thailand is a major gateway for the animal black market. Officials each year seize tens of thousands of live animals, as well as illegal elephant ivory and rhino horn.
While conference attendees will closing the trade in elephant ivory altogether, the South African government and some researchers are considering lifting the country's ban on rhino horn trade. The logic is that allowing commercial farming of the endangered animals will saver them.
"The reality of the matter is rhino horn is being poached in South Africa right now," environment minister Edna Molewatold said. "There's a moratorium on trade in South Africa but they still get it out of South Africa. So we are saying let's look at other mechanisms."
Much of the demand for rhino horn comes from China and Vietnam, where it is used for its medicinal properties.
Conservation groups say they don't think legalizing the horn trade will improve the plight of targeted rhinos. "We don't support the idea of legalized trade at this time because we just don't think it is enforceable," wildlife trade policy analyst Colman O'Criodain told BBC News. "We don't think it would stop the poaching crisis, we think the legal trade could make it worse."