TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:
On August 24, 2023, the Secretary of the Inside licensed underneath part 8 of the Fishermen’s Protecting Act of 1967, as amended (the “Pelly Modification”) (22 U.S.C. 1978), that nationals of the Individuals’s Republic of China (PRC) are partaking in commerce or taking of eight species of pangolin that diminishes the effectiveness of the Conference on Worldwide Commerce in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This letter constitutes my notification to the Congress according to subsection (b) of the Pelly Modification.
Pangolins, the world’s solely scaly mammal, are captured and trafficked at a better fee yearly than rhinoceroses, elephants, and tigers mixed. Client demand for pangolin scales for conventional medicinal practices has pushed all eight pangolin species, originating from throughout Africa and Asia, towards extinction. Efficient January 2, 2017, all species of pangolin had been included in CITES Appendix I, which prohibits worldwide commerce for primarily industrial functions. Regardless of this prohibition, the PRC stays the biggest vacation spot nation for pangolin scales.
The PRC has taken some steps to curtail pangolin trafficking at its worldwide ports and has uplisted pangolins underneath its Wildlife Safety Legislation. But the PRC maintains a system that enables for the authorized industrial commerce of pangolin scales for medicinal use from its nationwide stockpiles, thereby not directly offering industrial avenues for promoting unlawful pangolin specimens via its home pangolin market. Provincial governments throughout the PRC are allowed to problem permits to designated pharmaceutical firms and different entities to accumulate pangolin specimens from the PRC’s nationwide stockpiles for medicinal use.
In line with the United Nations, pangolin seizures have elevated tenfold since 2014; furthermore, primarily based on knowledge collected between 2007 and 2018, 71 % of seizures had been destined for the PRC. The dimensions of particular person seizures has additionally elevated; for instance, in 2019 Malaysian authorities reported seizing a record-setting 30 tons of pangolin merchandise. My Administration due to this fact stays involved that, regardless of assurances from the PRC relating to its anti-trafficking efforts, demand for pangolin scales seems to be rising. The PRC should do extra to shut home markets for pangolins and pangolin specimens that present cowl for the unlawful market. With out these actions, it’s doubtless that pangolin populations will proceed to say no, bringing the species nearer to extinction.
Because the Secretary of the Inside’s certification on August 24, 2023, government departments and companies have outlined conservation and anti-trafficking circumstances that have to be met by the PRC to ameliorate United States considerations that the PRC is undermining pangolin conservation underneath CITES. Obligatory actions by the PRC that may exhibit its dedication to pangolin conservation and compliance with CITES directives embrace utterly closing its home marketplace for pangolins and pangolin components, clear accounting of home stockpiles, and absolutely eradicating pangolins and pangolin components from the nationwide listing of permitted medicines. The PRC has made some progress in direction of its worldwide commitments, however given the complexity of the PRC’s home pangolin market and its overlapping jurisdictions, extra time is required to make sure that the suitable companies from the PRC are implementing the required steps to guard pangolin species from doable extinction.
That’s the reason I’ve directed the Division of State and the Division of the Inside to proceed their ongoing efforts and to report again to me on the end result of the continuing negotiations on the CITES Standing Committee assembly going down in Geneva from November 6-10, 2023. If important commitments by the PRC to implement CITES-directed measures to guard pangolin species haven’t been made by December 31, 2023, I plan to direct sure prohibitions on the importation of, and impose commerce measures on, sure merchandise from the PRC.
The USA will take the steps needed to finish unlawful commerce to be able to save pangolins from extinction, with the purpose of demonstrating progress by the tip of this yr.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
November 3, 2023.