Species+

Species+, developed by UNEP-WCMC and the CITES Secretariat, is a website designed to assist Parties with implementing CITES, CMS and other multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Species+ provides a centralised portal for accessing key information on species of global concern.

In particular, Species+ contains information on all species that are listed in the Appendices of CITES and CMS, as well as other CMS Family listings and species included in the Annexes to the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations.

Species search

To find information on a particular species, users should first select which Convention ("CITES" or "CMS") they seek information on (the default is CITES). This will filter the data based on the taxonomy and species that are listed under that Convention. Then, users can search for a species or higher taxon using the search field. An additional "locations" filter can also be applied if users are only interested in a species or group of species that occur in a particular country, territory or region.

Once on a species page, the database includes the following information for each species:

• LEGAL
• CITES: details of CITES Appendix listings, quotas and suspensions, and cases in one of the CITES Review processes, as well as EU Annexes and EU decisions.
• CMS: details of the CMS Appendix listing, as well as listings in other CMS Family Agreements and MoUs.
• NAMES
• Synonyms and common names.
• DISTRIBUTION
• Geographic distribution at the country and territory level (where available).
• REFERENCES
• CITES Standard reference or CMS reference, where applicable, or other scientific literature references that relate to the species name or the distribution.
• DOCUMENTS
• CITES CoP proposals to amend the Appendices;
• Animals and Plants Committee documents relating to the CITES Review of Significant Trade Process;
• Non-detriment findings (including case studies presented to the International Expert Workshop on CITES Non-detriment findings);
• Identification materials from the CITES Identification Manual and identification materials hosted on the CITES Virtual College;
• Agenda and Summary of Conclusions of meetings of the EU CITES Scientific Review Group.

See "Document search" section below for further information relating to the document search functionality.

Note on Legal information: Species+ allows users to view historic legal information by clicking on "Show History". Where legal information applies to subspecies or synonyms, this information will appear on the page for the corresponding accepted species name.

Note on Location filtering: Filters for country/territory/region of occurrence (used in the context of both searching and downloading lists) currently include all taxa associated with that geographic entity, including taxa that are recorded as extinct, introduced or re-introduced in that area. Details on these attributes are included in the right hand columns of the CITES and EU listing downloads and are also viewable on the "Distribution" tab for the species in question. Also note that when filtering on a country, all species that occur within that country and its territories will be provided.

Note on CITES Processes: The information for the cases relating to the Significant Trade Review process has been obtained from the CITES Review of Significant Trade Management System maintained by the CITES Secretariat: rst.cites.org

Closed cases for species/country combinations selected at CoP17 or earlier may not be comprehensively included.

Browser compatibility

This site is optimised for Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. The site may not display properly in older browsers.