The CITES Secretariat and UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre have launched a new service for ensuring information on endangered species can be easily used by national administrations.

Parties to CITES, customs officials or others involved in work related to the Convention can now ‘pull’ the scientific and common names of the over 35,000 species listed in the CITES Checklist and Species+ appendices into their electronic systems.

National CITES checklists, e-permitting systems or any other electronic system that makes use of CITES information can benefit from the new tool. In this way, species names can now be standardised and duplications of effort in maintaining the lists reduced.

“Better use of the CITES Checklist will strengthen the CITES business chain by eliminating mistakes and improving the quality of information in CITES permits and certificates” noted CITES Secretary General John Scanlon.

“We are confident that this new approach heralds a new chapter in the development of efficient national tools for the implementation of CITES,” said Jonathan Hutton, Director of UNEP-WCMC.

For more information please contact Liu Yuan yuan.liu@cites.org