June 5th | Sarina Veldman & Catherine Rutherford
The CITES treaty regulates the international trade of tens of thousands of species—including >25,000 orchid species. These restrictions are important to conservation, ensuring that orchids are not over-exploited in the wild. However, these rules can also create huge regulatory burdens for customs officers and for legitimate consumers whose use of orchids doesn’t threaten their conservation. In this post, Dr. Sarina Veldman and Catherine Rutherford discuss whether it might possible to ease some of these regulations for orchids that are used in cosmetic products such as moisturizers, serums, shampoos, foundations and mascaras.
Since CITES came into force in 1975, there have been ongoing efforts to optimize the efficacy of the Convention, and support its ultimate aim of ensuring that the survival of wild populations of plants and animals is not threatened by international trade. Over the years, the species’ listings in the Appendices have been further adjusted, particularly for plants, by the use of annotations to ensure regulation of the correct commodity that drives the demand for the wild resource and that is the main product in trade from the range State, for instance logs, sawn wood, oils or extracts. It has been a constant balancing act between including species, and sometimes larger taxa if distinguishing species within certain groups poses practical difficulties, and at the same time exempting those parts and derivatives in which international trade does not seem to have a detrimental effect on the species’ survival.
The more species covered by the Convention, the more time and effort has to be allocated to enforcement. For certain countries, the enforcement burdens of enforcing wildlife trade can be exceptionally heavy. It is therefore important to regulate only those commodities that drive the demand for the wild specimens to such an extent that it threatens species survival.
All orchids are listed under CITES, which places strict limits on their international trade. However, many orchids are economically important, used for their flowers, and used in foods, medicines and cosmetic products. Many of these orchid species can now be cultivated and most of the internationally traded orchids are artificially propagated, and so their trade presents no threat to conservation. As a result, exemptions to CITES regulations have been established to facilitate their international trade. This includes exemptions for cut flowers from artificially propagated plants; seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in-vitro, artificially propagated hybrids of the genera Cymbidium, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis and Vanda and fruits, as well as parts and derivatives of the edible orchid genus Vanilla.
For some other species of CITES-listed plants, such as Aloe ferox and Euphorbia antisyphilitica, an exemption has been established for finished products so that they can be traded without a permit. In 2014, discussions began to examine if such an exemption could also be appropriate for orchids. After an initial trade survey on all commercially traded orchids, a working group was established to examine potential risks and/or benefits of exempting orchid components in finished products from the Convention.
A questionnaire was developed for countries to share information about orchid trade and on the potential conservation impact an exemption on orchid products might have for orchid conservation. In-depth case studies were conducted on various orchids used in the cosmetics and personal care industries as well as in foodstuffs to determine, amongst others, range States, conservation status, amounts traded, origin of the raw material and the range of products containing orchid parts or derivatives. Additionally, particular effort was made in contacting industries and nurseries on the origins of orchids they use in their products. Cosmetic products containing orchids are day creams, night creams, anti-aging creams and serums, lip creams, facial masks, foundations, mascaras, massage oil, body lotions, shower gels, shampoos and conditioners. Tracing the raw material used in these products has proved challenging due to long and complex supply chains and confidentiality concerns of the industry. However, combining information from cooperative companies and trade organisations, the CITES trade database, nurseries and data available online gave an indicative picture of the likely supply chain and origin of the raw material.
Orchid shampoo containing Cymbium grandiflorum flower extract
Shampoo containing Orchis mascula flower extract
Research indicated that orchids used in certain medicines and traditional food products continue to be illegally and unsustainably harvested in large numbers from the wild. However, most (if not all) of the orchids used in the cosmetic and personal care industry seem to come from artificially propagated plants, and that trade in these products does not seem to pose a threat to wild populations.
Moreover, the cosmetic and personal care industry need to ensure a stable, consistent supply of material and it is difficult to source this from the wild. They spend a considerable amount of money on research and development into their sourcing; if they put a plant into commercial production to feed their demand, it is highly unlikely that this would depend on securing wild plants, which can be unpredictable and of inconsistent quality.
Analysis of the data also revealed knowledge gaps, such as origins of material used in some countries, and discrepancies between the import and export records in the CITES trade database. Some orchid ingredients are also traded using generic names that make it hard to assess, such as orchid extract, black orchid extract or white orchid extract. It also appears that not all companies are aware of CITES regulations and/or that they also apply to finished products that contain orchid extracts, leading to a lack of compliance with the required licensing conditions.
Based on the combined findings, a draft amendment proposal for CITES has been prepared that would exempt finished cosmetic products containing parts and derivatives of artificially propagated specimens of Bletilla striata, Cycnoches cooperi, Gastrodia elata, Phalaenopsis amabilis and Phalaenopsis lobbii. This has been submitted for discussion to the 25th meeting of the CITES Plants Committee. If accepted the amendment would make international trade for these products easier, allowing governments to focus on protecting other species that are actively threatened by illegal trade. Indeed, other orchid species that are used in commercial trade, but for which doubts exist on the origins of the material and/or for which a lot of trade in wild-harvested material is still occurring, have not been considered suitable to include in the current proposal.
The draft amendment proposal can be found here:
Information on the background of the project, as well as summaries of the case studies: