Westminster diary

I HAVE been interested in turtles and tortoises ever since my
step-grandmother gave me a pet tortoise when I was a child. So you can imagine
the alarm I felt on reading about the meeting in Nairobi of CITES, the
Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(New Scientist, 22 April, p 19).
Fred Pearce reports that the World Conservation Union now
judges the Caribbean hawksbill turtle as “critically endangered”. And although
CITES had placed it under Appendix I—meaning that all international trade
in it is banned—Cuba wants permission to sell 500 shells a year abroad. In…