A statement from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change announced that Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES) has eased the rules for the export of Dalbergia sissoo timber-based items have been eased.

Dalbergia sissoo or North Indian Rosewood or Shisham is found in abundance in India and is not treated as an endangered species however because of Appendix II, every consignment of weight above 10 kg requires CITES permit.

Due to this, there is decrease in exports of Shisham based products, affecting the livelihoods of around 50,000 artisans who work with the species.

The Ministry stated that after sustained deliberations by Indian representatives, the19th meeting of the Conference of Parties (CoP-19) to CITES being held at Panama agreed to relax the regulations established by the 17th meeting of CoP in 2016 that included all species of Genus Dalbergia in Appendix II of the convention, thereby requiring to follow CITES regulations for the trade of the species.

Credit: Bijay Chaurasia/Wikimedia commons

The statement said that going forward, any number of Dalbergia sissoo timber-based items can be exported as a single consignment in a shipment without CITES permits if the weight of each individual item of this consignment is less than 10kg.

Furthermore, it was agreed that for the net weight of each item, only timber will be considered, and any other item used in the product like metal and others will be ignored.