What’s happening?

DEFRA recently launched a public consultation looking at ways it could reform how it implements CITES regulations governing wildlife imports. This has a significant impact on UK businesses, both in trying to meet paperwork requirements and paying the subsequent fees.

Why now?

This is the first opportunity to review how the UK deals with this area of trade, after adopting the EU approach following our exit from the European Union. The reforms aim to:

  • make sure protections for species at risk of over-exploitation through international trade remain in place where they are beneficial,
  • are enhanced and made stronger where it’s necessary,
  • remove restrictions where there is no tangible benefit to helping conserve species.

What’s OATA’s role?

As a trade association this is our bread-and-butter work where we act as the collective voice for businesses. Reforming CITES and the UK Wildlife Trade Regulations could have a significant impact on the bureaucracy and fees that our importers face – that inevitably trickles down to everyone in the supply chain, including the price and availability of livestock in retail shops. UK businesses spend hundreds of thousands of pounds a year complying with UK requirements on CITES imports so reform could make a big difference for everyone in the industry. We only had six weeks to pull together a response (rather than the usual three months) on behalf of the industry so we’d like to thank the businesses which shared their experiences, information and ideas on how the system could be improved.

What did we say?

Our full responses is very long and technical so we’ve pulled out the main highlights below to give a flavour of what we’ve said on your behalf.

Article 10 (A10) certificates (commercial use certificates)

More than 20,200 UK Article 10 certificates were issued in 2024 and the Government acknowledges they are often required for species where it’s unclear what the conservation rationale is. While our industry currently only trades in a small number of species that require A10 Certificates, we know future CITES listings of species could see an increased use in our sector. Unfortunately, our preferred option of removing the need for these certificates was not presented as an option which rather goes against what a consultation is all about. These certificates are yet another requirement put on businesses that is not required by the CITES Convention.

Import permits for Annex B specimens

This puts additional requirements on businesses to apply for import permits on certain CITES species and for the UK Scientific Authority (the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)) to investigate and issue a Non-Detrimental Finding (NDF) on the trade, as well as requiring the exporting country to also issue an NDF. For example, every import of stony corals—among the UK’s most frequently traded CITES-listed taxa—requires the JNCC to carry out its own NDF, even though the exporting country has already completed one as part of the CITES permitting process. This goes beyond what the UK is legally required to do and is a relic of former EU legislation. This creates huge economic and bureaucratic burdens on businesses, with Government unable to provide clear evidence of conservation benefit and we believe they should be removed.

There were 28,445 UK permits issued in 2024. At a conservative estimate, we know UK businesses are spending tens of thousands of pounds (and it’s likely to be significantly more) meeting this requirement – a cost that the UK Government could do away with by doing away with these additional requirements.

We know the Government wants to save money, so doing away with this requirement would help make significant savings, particularly when it has not been able to demonstrate tangible conservation gains. We have examples of suspected illegality that has been reported but not been acted upon which just leads to frustration among legitimate traders trying to follow rules which do not offer the protection they should.

Annex D

Annex D is yet another relic of the old EU legisltation. It has created separate list of wildlife species, which do not appear on CITES Appendix I, II or III, that require an element of additional monitoring when they are imported. There are 140 species listed on the UK Annex D, resulting in around 60-100 import notifications each year. The Government itself acknowledges these requirements impose administrative burdens on business without much use of the data. These should be removed, particularly when there are other ways to measure these imports already exist

Provisions to better address smuggling post-import

This looks like an attempt to introduce a United States’ Lacey-style Act into UK regulations. UK importers would be expected to understand and comply with laws from multiple countries, in different languages, creating legal uncertainty in direct contravention to UK principles. It would also divert resources away from the UK Border which is where enforcement on preventing illegal species into the UK should be concentrated. We are not in favour of any approach that could impact on UK Border Force’s ability to do a proper job at UK entry points.

What next?

Our consultation submission, along with many others from a wide range of stakeholders, is now with DEFRA for analysis before it puts forward draft recommendations to turn into law. We will undoubtedly have further submissions to make when that is announced.