CITES Regulations - Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag
In this episode, Robbie O’Brien answers a viewer’s question about rosewood and CITES restrictions.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag]
Mailbag question: Do I need a CITES permit to travel with my Indian rosewood guitar?
Robert O'Brien: Today's Tips du Jour Mailbag question comes to us from Alabama. "Robert, I'm going to be traveling outside of the US and want to take my Indian rosewood guitar with me. Do I need to have any permits to satisfy CITES requirements? I would hate to have my guitar confiscated, Larry in Alabama."
Larry, I've been doing research on this for quite a while. In fact, I want to thank Matt Larrivee of Larrivee Guitars and Natalie Swango from LMI for helping me collect information to do research on this topic. It's not an easy topic to address. I've got a lot of notes here and I'll try and address it the best I can.
What is CITES?
So, here's the deal. First of all, what is CITES? CITES is an international agreement between governments. It's the Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. It's aim is to ensure that international trade-in specimens of wild animals and plants do not threaten their survival.
Basically, there's three parts to it. There's an appendix one. Appendix one is anything that is endangered of being extinct. For example, in our case, ivory, Brazilian Rosewood are two things that come to mind. Those are on the appendix one CITES list and are highly regulated and restricted. Appendix two covers species that are not necessarily threatened, but could become threatened if not controlled. What comes to mind immediately on that for me is mahogany and rosewood.
In fact, as of January 1st, 2017, all Dalbergia species are on the CITES Appendix two list. Also, three species of Bubinga are on that list, and a lot of people use those to build guitars. So now they're restricted. Appendix three is a list of species included at the request of a party that already regulates trade in that species.
Traveling within the United States
Before we get to your question about traveling outside of the United States, let me address traveling within the United States. Interstate commerce or traveling across state lines is generally okay in the United States.
Now, before you say, "Okay, I can go anywhere with my guitar," technically speaking, when you enter California, there is USDA inspectors at the border. Now, generally they're looking for fruits and flowers and plants and things like that. However, I guess somebody could ask you, "Do you have any Rosewood guitars?" I guess if you do, it could be a problem. However, I've never heard of that and I don't think that would happen.
Traveling outside of the United States
Generally speaking, traveling inside the United States, you're okay. The problem comes when you travel outside of the US. Now, fortunately in my research, I found an exemption for personal items. Here's the exemption. It's section 15, paragraph B of CITES. "Noncommercial exports of a maximum total weight of 10 kilos per shipment." In other words, about 22 pounds and a personal item of a restricted item or restricted species. In this case, we're talking guitars.
You can cross international borders, you can go out of and into the United States with a Rosewood species guitar. Now we're not talking Brazilian rosewood because that's on appendix one. We're talking appendix two, restricted species, rosewood, bubingas, things like that. You can travel outside the United States and come back in.
Here's something else I found. Your guitar can even have shell on it. However, when you enter the United States, again, on your customs declaration form, you must declare that you have shell and that'll probably put you in a big long line separate from everybody else, and look at you funny and ask you lots of questions. However, it is legal according to the research I've done. Don't take my word for it, do your own research as well.
I also recommend that you be prepared. The US Fish and Wildlife service and USDA inspectors are notoriously uninformed. Make sure you print out a copy of Section 15 paragraph B. Take that with you when you travel, highlight it, circle it, take it with you in your guitar case. If any situation arises, then you've documented it and perhaps it will help you out of a sticky situation.
Traveling with South American mahogany
Now, let's talk a little bit about South American mahogany. That is on Appendix two of the CITES regulations, and it only applies to logs, lumber, plywood and veneer. Finished products are exempt. It is okay for you to travel across an international border and enter back into the United States with your mahogany guitar.
A lot of this is great news, Larry, and to me it was also great news. There's so much misinformation out there about what we can do and what we can't do. A lot of people are scared to cross the international border. In my research, I've found that it is okay with rosewood species and mahogany to cross the international border and come back into the United States. That should answer your question.
Traveling with Brazilian rosewood
However, there is another question that comes up. What about Brazilian rosewood? Well, that one is on Appendix one. So now we have some more issues with that. Fortunately, they've created a way for you to travel with a personal instrument, personal item, and that is to get what's called a guitar passport. You can get those to the US Fish and Wildlife service by filling out Form 3-232. Let me just check to make sure that's correct. Yes, it is. You can go onto the US Fish and Wildlife website and find those.
Now, John Thomas had an article in Fretboard Journal that was back in February of 2014. The title was Have Guitar Passport Will Travel. He runs you through the steps of how to get the guitar passport. If you have a Brazilian rosewood guitar, it's a personal item. We're talking non-commercial here. If it's a personal item, you can go out and read John Thomas's article there in Fretboard Journal and figure out how to get that guitar passport. It's not impossible. A lot of people have gotten them. Just go through the right steps, cross the T's dot the I's. You'll be able to travel internationally with your Brazilian rosewood guitar for a personal instrument. I think if I'm not mistaken, that passport is valid for three years. Every three years you have to renew it.
Shipping commercial product internationally
Now, I also was going to address problems that Luthiers come up with. For example, your commercial items, dealers outside of the United States, clients outside of the United States. We need to ship guitars to them. That creates a problem. I got so many conflicting and contradictory answers to my question sometimes from the same regulatory body that I said, "It's just not worth it. Things change on a daily basis. I'm not even going to address it." Let me just say, it requires permits, money and a lot of time and energy to track all this stuff down. Like I said, sometimes it's contradictory about the answers you're going to get. I'm going to let you guys do your own research on that. I was going to address it, but I've decided not to.
So Larry, as you can see in your case, personal item is pretty simple. Cross the border, come back, declare the shell. Other than that, you're good to go. For the commercial use, yeah, we've got a lot of things to still kind of figure out. Hopefully when the dust settles, maybe it will become a little bit easier. Don't count on it though. When was the last time you saw government do anything efficiently? In addition to the CITES, which covers flora and fauna or restricted species of flora and fauna, we have a thing called the Lacey Act.
The Lacey Act
Now the Lacey Act restricts and tracks much more. Lacey Act says that wood and a lot of other things must be legally harvested, transported, imported, exported, et cetera and it's up to you to do your due diligence. Now, LMI spends a lot of money every year sending people all over the world to do the due diligence. They go to the sawmills, they go to the forests, they go to the harvesters, they do reports, they take pictures. In other words, they're doing this due diligence. They want to document that the wood is actually legally harvested, exported, commercialized, all that kind of stuff.
Now you wonder why the price of wood is going up so much. All of that costs a lot of money, but you can be guaranteed that all of the wood that comes from LMI comes from a legal source. So Larry, that's probably a lot more information what you asked for. Thank you very much for the question. I hope you found this useful and have a nice trip. See you when you get back.
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