There is a lot of confusion "out there" regarding how the CITES treaty
actually works, and what species it includes at which levels. This can be
cleared up by a quick visit to the CITES website: http://www.cites.org/ .
There are two things to note in particular:
1) Under the CITES treaty, only **international** trade is regulated:
CITES - related conventions only apply when a species on one of the three
"Appendicies" crosses an international border. While the individual
countries may, at their discretion, pass national laws imposing further
restrictions upon trade within their borders, these laws or regulations are
not part of the CITES convention. Therefore, unless a given country has passed
laws related to the internal commercial or non-commercial movement of CITES -
listed species, it is legal to sell or otherwise transport them anywhere
within the country: the treaty only applies if and when someone tries to
transport the listed species (or products derived from them), accross an
international border. , and
2) The CITES conventions do not in any case prohibit or forbid the trade,
transport or collection of any species - even those listed in the "Appendix
I" category, which are the ones deemed most threatened by the panel of
scientists which periodically meet to assign or re-assign species to the
various categories. Rather, it simply regulates the conditions which must be
met in order for listed species or their products to legally cross
international borders for various reasons.
For anyone interested, a good summary of the specific regulations and
conditions governing species listed in all three Appendices of the CITES
convention, can be found at http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/how.shtml - and all
the information you'll ever want to know about the treaty can also be found on
this excellent site - in plain, everyday English!!
So, Paolo's pearl can most definitely be assigned a "market value", although i
do not have enough knowledge of such things to even guess at what it might
be.
From the again white, and always great North,
Ross Mayhew.
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