CITES appendices

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) was opened for signature in Washington DC on 3rd March 1973, and to date has 182 Parties from across the world. If CITES is to remain a credible instrument for conserving species affected by trade, the decisions of the Parties must be based on the best available scientific and technical information. Recognizing this, IUCN and TRAFFIC have undertaken technical reviews of the proposals to amend the CITES Appendices.

The key objective of this Workshop was to gather a ‘steering group’ of government departments, non-government organizations (NGOs) and research institutions in Southeast Asia to raise awareness of the magnitude of the pangolin trade and discuss how to combat the illegal trade. The outputs included a list of recommendations and follow-up actions to be circulated among relevant organizations, which would assist enforcement agencies in prioritizing and focusing their efforts to halt this illegal trade.

TRAFFIC Southeast Asia identified the Southeast Asian Box Turtle as a heavily traded species to be used as a case study for science-based management, which could serve as a model for other CITES Appendix II species in trade. This study aims to assess the legislation in place to regulate trade in freshwater turtles and tortoises and to identify past and current harvest and trade levels.

Reports from non-governmental organizations have raised concerns about the scale of illegal trade in merbau, a timber from nine species in the genus Intsia and there is concern over the sustainability of harvests from natural merbau populations. The study on which this report is based, funded by Bundesamt für Naturschutz, the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), aimed to investigate in detail the international trade in merbau timber and to provide scientific and current data on the population status, harvest management and trade in these species.

The goal of this study was to analyze available information on various types of poaching, assess the scale of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and develop recommendations towards reducing the illegal catch.

Shortly after the 2002 conclusion of the TRAFFIC surveys the Viet Nam Government prohibited the use and exploitation of wild marine turtles with Government Decree 48/2002/ND-CP. In 2003 the government undertook an awareness campaign to educate relevant government agencies and souvenir business owners/managers that the sale of marine turtle products was illegal.The Vietnamese Government, with assistance from IUCN, WWF, TRAFFIC and the Danish Government, formulated in 2004 a Marine Turtle Conservation Action Plan to 2010 in Viet Nam (MTCAP) (MoFI, 2004).

The 2005 version of the CITES Checklist not only provides an alphabetical list of the fauna and flora included in Appendices I, II and III of CITES as adopted by the Conference of the Parties, but includes as well a CD-ROM containing the Annotated Appendices which have an index to family names and common names. A significant help to Management and Scientific Authorities, Customs officials, and all others involved in implementing and enforcing the Convention, the list provides available common names in English, Spanish and French in addition to the scientific names.

The 2003 version of the CITES Checklist not only provides an alphabetical list of the fauna and flora included in Appendices I, II and III of CITES as adopted by the Conference of the Parties, but includes as well a CD-ROM containing the Annotated Appendices which have an index to family names and common names. A significant help to Management and Scientific Authorities, Customs officials, and all others involved in implementing and enforcing the Convention, the list provides available common names in English, Spanish and French in addition to the scientific names.