Skip to content

CITES Appendix

Definition

CITES classifies listed species into three appendices. Appendix I prohibits commercial trade; Appendix II permits trade only with documented permits and quota compliance; Appendix III lists species where one country requests international trade monitoring. Forensic species identification determines which appendix applies to a seizure and whether trade was lawful.

Related terms

Chain of custody
The documented chronological record of who collected, handled, transferred, and examined a piece of evidence. For digital evidence, chain of custody includes...
Cytochrome b (cyt b)
A mitochondrial protein-coding gene widely used in forensic species identification before COI barcoding was standardised. Still used because its reference database for...
DNA barcoding
Species identification using a short, standardised region of the mitochondrial genome. For animals, the primary barcode marker is a 648-base-pair segment of...
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
DNA located in mitochondria rather than the cell nucleus. Present in hundreds to thousands of copies per cell, making it recoverable from...
STR profiling
Short tandem repeat profiling: the same multi-locus PCR-based method used for human identity testing, adapted for target species with species-specific primer sets....

Explained in

  • Wildlife Crime and Biological EvidenceCITES classifies listed species into three appendices. Appendix I prohibits commercial trade; Appendix II permits trade only with documented permits and quota...

Your journey to becoming a forensic professional starts here.

Practice with mock tests, learn from structured notes, and get your questions answered by a global forensic community, all in one place.