CoP17 Prop. 60

Amendment of the listings of Aquilaria spp. and Gyrinops spp. in Appendix II
Amend Annotation #14 with the underlined text:“All parts and derivatives except:a) seeds and pollen;b) seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterilecontainers;c) fruits;d) leaves;e) exhausted agarwood powder, including compressed powder in all shapes; andf) finished products packaged and ready for retail trade, this exemption does not apply towood chips, beads, prayer beads and carvings.”

Proponent: United States of America
Summary: Aquilaria and Gyrinops are two genera of trees in the family Thymelaeaceae, distributed
from India to New Guinea. The CITES Checklist currently recognises some 25 species of Aquilaria
and eight of Gyrinops. In some trees, a still imprecisely understood combination of wounding, vectorsof infection (bacterial infection, fungus) and resinous response induces the formation of a resinousheartwood (agarwood) that is fragrant and highly valued. The primary source of agarwood in reported
trade is Aquilaria malaccensis. Agarwood is used in perfumes, incense and traditional medicines, andas an essential oil, distilled from the wood. Carvings and beads, including prayer beads, are also
produced from the wood. So-called exhausted wood powder – the residue left after the distillation
process – is often compressed to make incense sticks and small statues.
All agarwood-producing taxa are currently included in Appendix II; Aquilaria malaccensis was listed in
1994, and the rest of the genus Aquilaria and all Gyrinops spp. in 2004. They are currently covered byannotation #14, agreed at CoP16 (Bangkok, 2013), including all parts and derivatives except:a) seeds and pollen;b) seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterilecontainers;c) fruits;d) leaves;e) exhausted agarwood powder, including compressed powder in all shapes; andf) finished products packaged and ready for retail trade, this exemption does not apply tobeads, prayer beads and carvings.
International agarwood trade is complex, as it is traded in a variety of forms and at various stages ofprocessing, from raw whole pieces to finished products such as perfumes, which may contain only
small amounts of agarwood oil. Some processing of agarwood to produce end-products takes place inrange States; some takes place elsewhere with resulting products, either sold domestically or
re-exported to other consumer countries.
One of the major products in trade is wood chips, which may be traded for burning as ‘incense wood’,or for further processing to produce products such as beads, prayer beads, medicines, incense sticks,
perfumes and tea. Such chips are exported in large quantities from range States and therefore adhereto the recommendations for inclusion in Appendix II set out in Res. Conf. 11.21 (Rev CoP16), whichstate that commodities listed should be those that dominate the trade and the demand for the wildresource.
It is not possible to distinguish wood chips destined for further processing from those intended to beused as an end-product. Because of this, concern has been expressed that substantial quantities ofwood chips intended for further processing could be entering trade ostensibly as finished products
packaged and ready for the retail trade. Under the current listing, wood chips that appear to be
packaged and ready for retail trade are not covered by the Convention.
Consultations undertaken by the Standing Committee Working Group on Annotations indicated that
there was variability in how trade in agarwood chips packaged for retail trade was regulated, withsome such trade taking place with CITES permits, even though this was not currently required.

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CoP17 Prop. 60

Conversely, in some cases it seemed as if such chips had been confiscated because they lacked
CITES documentation, even though such documentation was not required.
Information from the CITES Trade Database confirms the importance of wood chips as a product intrade (ca. 7000mt of Aquilaria reported as exported and 10,000mt reported as imported between 2005
and 2015; ca. 180mt of Gyrinops reported as exported and 230mt reported as imported in the sameperiod), and also indicates numerous transactions of less than 5kg, reported as grammes orkilogrammes. Reported small transactions such as these account for only a very small proportion ofoverall trade in wood chips (ca. 500kg in total, or 0.01% by weight of trade in Aquilaria as reported byexporters, and just 5kg of Gyrinops in total for the period 2005 to 2105). The amount of trade in woodchips packaged and ready for retail trade currently unregulated by CITES is unknown.
Analysis: Wood chips are a major trade item for agarwood, included in Appendix II as Aquilaria spp.
and Gyrinops spp. The current annotation for agarwood exempts wood chips that are packaged andready for retail trade from CITES controls. This exemption is reported to be inconsistently applied.
Removal of the exemption, as proposed here, would ensure that all agarwood chips, however
packaged, were subject to CITES controls (apart from those exempt under personal effects as
specified in Res. Conf. 13.7 (Rev CoP16)), thereby bringing more of the agarwood trade under CITES
control and, in theory, simplifying implementation.

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