Medicinal Plants and CITES

About CITES Medicinal plants listed on the CITES appendices Revision of the #Annotations for medicinal and aromatic plants included in the CITES appendices
	Medicinal plant material in a market in Söke, Turkey. Photo © Dagmar Lange

1.  About CITES

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is the principal tool for monitoring or restricting international trade of species threatened by over-exploitation.  This international convention entered into force in 1975.  The national governments that currently have signed, and thereby become “Parties” to this convention, are obliged to monitor and control international trade in the plants and animals listed in its two main appendices. Appendix I prohibits trade, except for special reasons such as scientific research. Appendix II requires parties to issue export permits that confirm non-detrimental harvest of listed species, and requires importing countries that are Parties to CITES to check and monitor permits on incoming material.  Having become parties to CITES, national governments are required to establish or designate scientific authorities to conduct non-detriment studies for listed species, and management authorities to issue permits and certificates.  Species can be added, removed, or shifted between appendices through proposals passed at biennial meetings of the signatories, or Conferences of the Parties. 

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2.  Medicinal plants listed on CITES

Of the approximately 21,000 plant species listed on the CITES appendices, more than 300 are plants used medicinally.  Many medicinal plant species have been included on CITES appendices because they belong to widely threatened taxonomic groups – particularly orchid and cactus species – rather than because of their harvest and trade as medicines.  However, more than 60 plant species have been listed on CITES expressly because of the threat of over-harvest for medicinal uses (Schippmann 2001). 

Issues related to medicinal plants and CITES are regularly updated in the MPSG newsletter, Medicinal Plant Conservation

Schippmann, U.  2001.  Medicinal Plants Significant Trade Study, CITES Projekt S-109, Plants Committee Document PC9 9.1.3 (rev).  BfN Skripten 39.  German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt für Naturschutz), Bonn, Germany.

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3. Revision of the #Annotations for medicinal and aromatic plants included in the CITES appendices

In 2004, the CITES Secretariat engaged the MPSG in a project to identify problems that may arise because of unclear annotations regarding medicinal plant species included in the Appendices of CITES.  Recommended changes to the current annotations for medicinal plant species are based on an initial MPSG report and recommendations approved at the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP13, Bangkok, 2004).

An interim report was submitted to the CITES Plants Committee for consideration during the Fifteenth meeting of the Plants Committee in Geneva (Switzerland), 17-21 May 2005. The report is available on the CITES website.

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A final report and summary of revisions proposed by MPSG was considered by the CITES Plants Committee at its Sixteenth meeting in Lima (Peru), 3-8 July 2006.  The final report is available on the CITES website.

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Based on these recommendations, a proposal to amend the annotations for medicinal plant species on Appendices II and III was drafted by the Scientific Authority of Germany for consideration by the 14^th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in The Hague (Netherlands), 3-15 June 2007.

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