[MPWG] CITES and trade in orchids

[St John, Anne]

Dear Members of the Medicinal Plants Working Group,



Although we realize that most of the members of this email group are not
involved in the fragrance and personal care products industries, we are
hopeful that some of you work in those industries (or know people who work
in those industries) and would be able to assist us with this exercise.
The Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are examining the international trade in
orchids and orchid products.  All species of orchids are included in the
CITES Appendices and are listed in such a way that CITES documents are
required to trade internationally in all parts and derivatives except
seeds, pollen, and seedlings when shipped under certain conditions.



For the personal care products, fragrance, and cosmetic industries, this
means that CITES export permits are required to trade internationally in
everything from the raw plant parts, to the processed material and extract,
to the finished products traded for the retail trade.  The point of the
current exercise is to determine if it would be reasonable from a
conservation standpoint to exempt finished products from CITES controls,
using the guiding principles that CITES controls should focus on those
commodities that first appear in international trade as exports from range
States and those that dominate the trade and demand for the wild resource.
At the end of the exercise, it may be possible to contemplate exempting
finished products for certain orchid species or higher taxa, for example,
if the range countries are exporting raw material and the additional
processing takes place in second and third countries; or if the
overwhelming majority of the trade in a particular species is in
artificially propagated specimens and it can be reasonably concluded that
the trade is not impacting wild populations.



To help inform these discussion, Switzerland, which is leading these
discussions in CITES, has developed a questionnaire (see here for a link to
the Notification to the Parties providing the background information and
key links:
https://www.cites.org/sites/default/files/notif/E-Notif-2018-004.pdf and
this page for a link to the questionnaire - it is under 2018/004:
https://www.cites.org/eng/notif/2014.php).  If you are involved in the
personal care products, fragrance, or cosmetics industries and use orchids
in your products, we would greatly appreciate receiving your answers to
this questionnaire.  You may answer the questionnaire directly using the
link provided in the Notification, submit the questionnaire to the Chair of
the working group using the email address provided in the Notification, or
submit your responses to us (please send to Anne St. John at
anne_stjohn at fws.gov) and we will provide them to the working group.  If you
intend to answer using any of these options, we would greatly appreciate
being informed of your participation.  Thank you for your assistance.



Regards,

Anne St. John

-- 
Anne St. John, Biologist
Wildlife Trade and Conservation Branch
Division of Management Authority
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
5275 Leesburg Pike
Falls Church, VA 22041-3803
Email: anne_stjohn at fws.gov
Tel: 703-358-1990
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