The huge European appetite is stimulating illegal trade in endangered plants and animals, even though most of its imports are legal, said a report by the watchdog organisation Traffic.

At the same time that its own market fuels the wildlife industry, the EU has taken a leading role in governing the trade.

But the enforcement of rules meant to sustain commerce in rare wildlife is hindered by a lack of coordination, said the report.

The report was released as the 171 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or Cites, prepared to open a 12-day meeting here on Sunday to consider revising the list of thousands of plants and animals whose trade is regulated.

The parties to Cites meet every three years.

Traffic is a monitoring group set up in 1976 by the World Conservation Union and the World Wild Fund for Nature, the two organisations responsible for creating the Cites treaty.

Declared imports by the EU countries in 2005 reached 93 billion euros (S$191 billion), nearly 38 per cent of the total worldwide trade in these products of 249 billion euros, said the report.

About 90 per cent was derived from timber and fishing.

The European demand 'is a driver of illegal and unsustainable trade, which threatens the survival of wild plants, animals and their ecosystems', said the report.

Traffic has recommended that the EU adopt an Enforcement Action Plan to clamp down on illegal traffickers.

'Coordinated efforts within a common framework with linkages and defined targets would enhance the effectiveness of EU actions for legal and sustainable trade,' it said.

A separate report, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature, however, has said that banning the trade in endangered wildlife could result in increased trading of the animals and their parts.

The finding was likely to fuel debate among conservationists who disagree over how to best curb the trade in endangered species.

'The most severe restriction that Cites can enforce is an explicit ban on commercial trade of wild species threatened with extinction,' Mr Philippe Rivalan, a researcher at the University Paris Sud, wrote in the Nature commentary.

'We report here the concerns that such bans can themselves lead to an increase in trade of vulnerable species.'

Conservationists can recommend that Cites bans trade in a particular endangered species.

But because Cites can take between 240 and 420 days to actually implement the ban, the volume of trade in that species actually tends to rise during that period as traders try to beat the time limit.

And once the ban is imposed, prices can spiral upward rapidly.

The price of rhino horns on the South Korean market, for example, increased by 400 per cent in the two years after Cites banned the trade in the items, while the poaching of black rhinos also rose.

The study did not say when the ban was imposed.

'At the very least, our findings suggest that the Cites authorities will need to use extra vigilance in controlling permits during transition periods and in adhering to quotas,' Mr Rivalan wrote.

He also said Cites should work to speed up the listing process, so that conservation measures could be put in place before a species' numbers drop to the point where a trade ban is necessary.

ASSOCIATED PRESS