New CITES rules

Uilleann Pipes
1

This issue was discussed in the eBay thread, but I think it deserves its own.

From my reading, the new CITES rules could be devastating for pipemakers who use various types of dalbergia (rosewoods, ABW) and who ship internationally. It appears that unless you are travelling with your instrument, CITES certificates are required. So shipping/posting new or used instruments is much more complicated. In addition, shipping an instrument to be repaired or reeded may also require CITES certificates.

Since I live in Canada, I’ve emailed the Canadian government office responsible for CITES and asked for information on how the new rules will be applied. I’ll post their reply.

It would be interesting to have different perspectives from countries where pipers and pipemakers are present (Ireland, U.S., UK, France, Germany, Australia, Spain, etc.). If anyone has the inclination, I’d invite them to email their national government CITES office, ask how the new rules will be applied by that government, and post the replies here.

2

Webinar for musicians traveling with instruments.

3

In response to my question about shipping an instrument which contains dalbergia, Environment Canada informs me that:

Any movement of rosewood across international borders will require a CITES export document. For instance, an instrument going from Canada to the US for repair or adjustment, and then returning, would need 2 permits – one to export permit from Canada (issued by Canada) and then another permit to export from the US (issued by the US but based on info in the first permit).

4

Did they see fit to explain what it would take to get an export permit?

5

Here’s the link to the permit application form.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/cites/default.asp?lang=En&n=BA634294-1

I emailed them at ec(dot)cites(dot)ec(at)canada(dot)ca and got a reply within a few hours.

6

Some minor points:

Within the EU, no CITES certificate of any kind is required, nor is one required when purchasing in-country.

My understanding is that anything manufactured prior to 1st Jan 2017 requires no certificate, although presumably it would be prudent to be able to prove it. Also, I believe anything being repaired is not subject to the import/export requirements, though this is still vague.

DEFRA are telling manufacturers at the moment that they don’t expect most countries will require an import certificate on top of a valid export certificate.

There is currently an issue that the relevant EU agency has not yet done the legwork to implement the regulations, so EU states cannot yet actually issue these certificates. It is expected to be up and running some time in February (and if you want to export in the mean time, tough luck).

7

For the Canadian export permit, you have to describe the object in detail, but as far as I can see there are no requirements to submit documentation to prove when or where the wood was harvested.