1. The category
Products made wholly or partly from controlled species.
CITES certificates.
Wildlife and forestry regulation.
2. The two levels
CITES
Appendix I: no commercial trade.
Appendix II: trade permitted with a certificate.
Domestic
Chinese regulation of wildlife and forestry products.
3. The documents
CITES permit, for the species listed.
Quarantine and health documents for live animals and plants.
Origin documentation for the material.
4. The products
Furniture
Certain wood species.
Musical instruments
Rosewood and similar.
Crafts
Ivory, which is prohibited, and certain bone products.
Traditional medicine
Listed species.
5. The difficulty
Identifying the species.
A product’s composition has to be documented, and DNA or microscopy may be used to test it.
6. The scenario
An exporter of wooden furniture was asked by the destination to demonstrate the species.
The supplier’s documentation named the species commercially, not botanically.
7. The lesson
Trade names do not satisfy species-level requirements.
8. The preparation
Supplier declarations naming the botanical species.
Chain of custody documentation.
9. Closing view
Wildlife and forestry controls are among the strictest.
The documentation burden is on the material, not the product.
*This article is based on CITES requirements and China’s wildlife protection regulations.*