Breakthrough at Latest CITES Meeting

A consensus was reached at the 70th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee, which took place in Sochi, Russia last week, which could see musical instruments finally exempted from the CITES II environmental safeguards.

The Committee will exempt “finished musical instruments”, “finished musical instrument parts” and “finished musical instrument accessories” from its licensing requirements, although the exact definition of those terms will be defined in a proposal document prepared in cooperation with the EU.

If successful the proposal could be adopted at the next CITES meeting in May 2019 and pass into law by September next year.

One compliance matter discussed by the Committee concerned exports of African rosewood from Nigeria. Since the beginning of 2018, Nigeria has authorised over 180,000 m3 of the timber to China and Vietnam, without first making sure that these exports will not threaten the survival of the species. The Committee decided to recommend suspension of commercial trade in this timber species until Nigeria has made a non-detriment finding for the species in the country.