CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement among governments to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

This website intends to provide selected and updated information on the work undertaken by the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department on the main issues raised by the harvesting and trade of commercially exploited aquatic species listed in CITES Appendices.

FAO and CITES have been working closely in order to address some of the technical difficulties of countries in fulfilling the requirements of a CITES listing and in an attempt to reconcile some differences of opinion regarding the role of CITES as a complementary fisheries management tool.

A number of the FAO activities reported in this website have been funded by Regular Programme funds and, since 2005, also by the Japan funded Trust Fund Project on “CITES and commercially-exploited species, including the evaluation of listing proposals”.