CITES Appendices and Levels of Animal Protection

Species listed on Appendix I are banned from international commercial trade.

Appendix II species may be traded under controlled conditions, requiring export permits issued under restrictions which aim to eliminate any potentially harmful effects to the species.

Finally, species listed on Appendix III should be handled in a way similar to Appendix II species.

Species may be added to or removed from Appendix I and II, or moved between them, only by the Conference of the Parties, either at its regular meetings or by postal procedures.

Whether a given species should be "up-listed" or "down-listed" (placed in, or moved from, one Appendix to another) is judged against a detailed set of criteria that mirror the scale of the threat from trade for the species under consideration.

A species may be added to or removed from Appendix III at any time and by any Party that needs international cooperation to meet national conservation goals for this species in the country.

An introduction to the complex CITES regulatory process

Species are grouped in CITES in three Appendices according to how threatened they may be by international trade.

Appendix I

Appendix I covers about 1,000 species that are the most endangered of CITES-listed animals and plants. Because these animals and plants may are threatened with extinction, CITES generally prohibits commercial international trade in them. However, these species may be exported and imported for non-commercial purposes.

CITES Appendix I species include sea turtles, Asian elephants, most African elephants, chimpanzees, almost all great whales, tigers, all great parrots, Brazilian rosewood, and Asian tropical lady's slipper orchids.

Appendix II

Appendix II includes more then 32,000 species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction now, but may be threatened in the future if trade in these species is not closely controlled. Appendix II also lists some "look-alike" species which, because they are difficult to distinguish from regulated species, also need protection.

International trade in Appendix II species may be authorized if the relevant authorities are satisfied that certain conditions are met; above all that trade will not be detrimental to the survival of the species in the wild.

Appendix II includes species such as American black bears, iguanas, southern fur seals, most species of sturgeon, three species of sharks, hard corals, Pacific Coast mahogany, and the triangle palm.

Appendix III

Appendix III contains species that are protected at the request of a CITES member nation ,where that nation has asked other CITES members for assistance in controlling or preventing unsustainable or illegal trade in that species.

Such assistance is primarily given in the form of issuing export permits and certificates of origin. Examples of species list on Appendix III and the countries that listed them are two-toed sloths (Costa Rica), African civets (Botswana), African waxbill (Ghana), and bigleaf mahogany (Costa Rica, Brazil and Mexico). Often countries use the Appendix III protection until the species is successfully listed on App.II (as was done by the UK and the European Union for the Basking shark prior to CITES CoP 12 in 2002 and by Australia for the Great White shark prior to CITES CoP 13 in 2004).

CITES conservation concerns are guided by the "precautionary principle" -- understanding that species can best be protected from excessive international trade by taking appropriate regulatory actions before they are endangered. The "precautionary principle" was officially recognized by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 15, states that, "Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation."

In other words: Trade in species should be given the protections provided by Appendix II as soon as the threat of harm appears to avoid any risk that the species ever becomes threatened with extinction (and thus needs to be listed on App.I). Regrettably, the reality is that most species are listed too late, a situation IFAW continuously campaigns to reverse.