Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); Twentieth Regular Meeting: Taxa Being Considered for Amendments to the CITES Appendices and Proposed Resolutions, Decisions, and Agenda Items Being Considered; Observer Information

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR <SUBAGY>Fish and Wildlife Service</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FWS-HQ-IA-2024-0033; FXIA16710900000-245-FF09A10000]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); Twentieth Regular Meeting: Taxa Being Considered for Amendments to the CITES Appendices and Proposed Resolutions, Decisions, and Agenda Items Being Considered; Observer Information</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The United States, as a Party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), may propose amendments to the CITES Appendices for consideration at meetings of the Conference of the Parties. The twentieth regular meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES (CoP20) is scheduled to be held in Uzbekistan, November 24-December 5, 2025. With this notice, we respond to recommendations received from the public concerning proposed amendments to the CITES Appendices (species proposals) and proposed resolutions, decisions, and agenda items that the United States might submit for consideration at CoP20; invite your comments and information on these potential proposals and working documents; and provide information on how U.S. nongovernmental organizations can attend CoP20 as observers. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Meeting:</E> The meeting is scheduled to be held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, November 24-December 5, 2025. <E T="03">Submitting Information and Comments:</E> We will consider written information and comments we receive by January 16, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> You may submit comments pertaining to species proposals for consideration at CoP20 by one of the following methods: (1) <E T="03">Electronically:</E> Using the Federal eRulemaking Portal: <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> search for and submit comments on FWS-HQ-IA-2024-0033, which is the docket number for this notice. (2) <E T="03">U.S. mail:</E> Submit by U.S. mail to Public Comments Processing; Attn: Docket No. FWS-HQ-IA-2024-0033; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; MS: PRB (JAO/3W); 5275 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3803. <E T="03">Requesting Approval To Attend CoP20 as an Observer:</E> Send your request via U.S. mail to the Division of Management Authority, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 5275 Leesburg Pike, MS: IA, Falls Church, VA 22041; via email to <E T="03">managementauthority@fws.gov;</E> or via fax to 703-358-2276. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For information pertaining to species proposals, contact Rosemarie Gnam, Head, Division of Scientific Authority, at 703-358-1708 (phone); 703-358-2276 (fax); or <E T="03">scientificauthority@fws.gov</E> (email). For information pertaining to resolutions, decisions, and agenda items, contact Naimah Aziz, Head, Division of Management Authority, at 703-358-2028 (phone); 703-358-2298 (fax); or <E T="03">managementauthority@fws.gov</E> (email). Individuals in the United States who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability may dial 711 (TTY, TDD, or TeleBraille) to access telecommunications relay services. Individuals outside the United States should use the relay services offered within their country to make international calls to the point-of- contact in the United States. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, hereinafter referred to as CITES or the Convention, is an international treaty designed to control and regulate international trade in certain animal and plant species that are or may be affected by trade and are now, or potentially may become, threatened with extinction. Species are included in the Appendices to CITES, which are available on the CITES Secretariat's website at <E T="03">https://www.cites.org.</E> See <E T="03">https://www.cites.org/eng/app/appendices.php;</E> 50 CFR 23.91(a) (How do I find out if a species is listed? The official CITES list includes species of wildlife and plants placed in Appendix I, II, and III in accordance with the provisions of Articles XV and XVI of the Treaty. This list is maintained by the CITES Secretariat (Secretariat) based on decisions of the Parties. You can access the official list from the CITES website (see § 23.7).); 50 CFR 23.7(f). Currently there are 184 Parties to CITES—183 countries, including the United States, and one regional economic integration organization, the European Union. The Convention calls for regular biennial meetings of the Conference of the Parties (CoP) unless the Conference decides otherwise. At these meetings, the Parties review the implementation of CITES, make provisions enabling the Secretariat in Switzerland to carry out its functions, consider amendments to the species included in Appendices I and II, consider reports presented by the Secretariat, and make recommendations for the improved effectiveness of CITES. Any country that is a Party to CITES may propose amendments to Appendices I and II, as well as resolutions, decisions, and agenda items for consideration by all the Parties. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) regulations governing this public process are found in title 50 of the Code of Federal Regulations at 50 CFR 23.87. The Endangered Species Act (ESA; 16 U.S.C. 1531 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), in part, implements CITES and incorporates its Appendices of CITES-listed species into U.S. law (see, <E T="03">e.g.,</E> 16 U.S.C. 1532(4), 1537a, 1538(c), 1538(g), 1539(g), 1540(f)), and the Service has promulgated U.S. CITES implementing regulations (see 50 CFR part 23). The Secretary of the Interior is designated the U.S. Management Authority and U.S. Scientific Authority for CITES purposes, and the respective functions of each are carried out by the Service. 16 U.S.C. 1537a; 50 CFR 23.6. The ESA prohibits, inter alia, “any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to engage in any trade in any specimens contrary to the provisions of the Convention, or to possess any specimens traded contrary to the provisions of the Convention.” 16 U.S.C. 1538(c); 16 U.S.C. 1532(4) (“The term “Convention” means the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, signed on March 3, 1973, and the appendices thereto.”). U.S. CITES implementing regulations explain the administration of CITES, the CITES listing process, the effective dates of CITES listings, and where to find official CITES documents and the CITES Appendices, as set forth in 50 CFR 23.7 and 23.84-23.91. At least 150 days before any CoP is held, any Party may submit a proposed amendment to Appendix I or II ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> for a species to be included in, removed from, or transferred between the CITES Appendices). CITES Art. XV(1)(a); 50 CFR 23.87(b)(2). The Secretariat then makes publicly available and provides all Parties a list of proposed amendments. CITES Art. XV(1)(a), (2)(c); 50 CFR 23.7(f)(5). Pursuant to 50 CFR 23.7 and 23.86, as we receive information on the upcoming CoP, we notify the public through <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices or on our website. The CoP can adopt amendments to Appendices I and II by a two-thirds majority of those Parties in attendance. 50 CFR 23.85(a); CITES Art. XV(1)(b). Appendix-I and -II species listings adopted at the CoP are effective 90 days after the last day of the CoP, unless otherwise specified in the proposal. 50 CFR 23.91(b)(1); CITES Art. XV(1)(c); 72 FR 48402 at 48439 and 48492-48494, August 23, 2007; 71 FR 20168 at 20205-20207, April 19, 2006. This is our second notice in a series of <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notices that, together with an announced public meeting that we will hold approximately 2 to 3 months prior to CoP20, provide you with an opportunity to participate in the development of the U.S. submissions and negotiating positions for CoP20. With this notice, we describe proposed amendments to the CITES Appendices (species proposals) and proposed resolutions, decisions, and agenda items that the United States might submit for consideration at CoP20; invite your comments and information on these proposals and other documents; and provide information on how U.S. nongovernmental organizations can attend CoP20 as observers. We published our first CoP20-related <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice on March 22, 2024 (89 FR 20489), in which we requested information and recommendations on animal and plant species proposals, and information and recommendations on proposed resolutions, decisions, and agenda items for the United States to consider submitting for consideration at CoP20, and provided preliminary information on how to request approved observer status for nongovernmental organizations that wish to attend the meeting. Comments received on our March 22, 2024, notice can be viewed at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> in Docket No. FWS-HQ-IA-2024-0033. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Recommendations for Species Proposals for the United States To Consider Submitting for CoP20</HD> In response to our March 2024 notice, we received 46 comments with recommendations from 19 individuals and 25 organizations for possible proposals involving almost 3,500 animal taxa and 13 plant taxa for amendments to the CITES Appendices. The commenters include organizations such as the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Animal Welfare Institute, California Native Plant Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society International, International Fund for A ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 120k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━