CITES Appendix I
Definition
The strictest listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, prohibiting commercial international trade in specimens of listed species. African elephants were listed in 1989; Asian elephants in 1975.
- Trade status
- Commercial international trade prohibited
- African elephant listing year
- 1989
- Asian elephant listing year
- 1975
- Forensic relevance
- Basis for prosecuting ivory trafficking
Common questions
Why were African and Asian elephants listed 14 years apart?+
Asian elephant populations had already collapsed and faced severe trade pressure by 1975, while African elephant populations were still large enough to remain under Appendix II with regulated trade until poaching-driven declines through the 1980s pushed them to Appendix I in 1989.
Does an Appendix I listing ban all elephant ivory trade including antiques?+
Most jurisdictions carve out narrow exemptions for ivory acquired and worked before the listing date, so age verification and provenance documentation, not just species identification, become central to whether a specific ivory item is lawfully tradeable.
Can captive-bred specimens of an Appendix I species be traded commercially?+
CITES allows registered captive-breeding operations meeting specific criteria to trade certain Appendix I species commercially under a special registration, though this exemption is narrowly applied and does not cover wild-sourced specimens.
Related terms
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- ETIS
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- Savanna vs Forest Elephant
- African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) and African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) are now recognised as separate species. They have distinct mitochondrial lineages,...
- Schreger Angle
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- Wasser Map
- A population-level reference map of elephant DNA variation across the African continent, developed by Samuel Wasser's lab at the University of Washington,...