No. 949                                   Geneva, 18 December 1996


CONCERNING:


   Submission of Nationally Established Export Quotas for 1997


1.The Secretariat is in the process of preparing a Notification on
  export  quotas  for 1997.  It would like to  send  this  to  the
  Parties  as  early as possible next year, preferably before  the
  end  of  January, and to avoid having to issue two Notifications
  on  export  quotas for 1997. To meet these two  objectives,  the
  Secretariat requests that the Parties provide it with details of
  the  export  quotas that they have established for 1997,  by  15
  January 1997 at the latest.

2.The  information  requested should  be  presented  in  a  format
  similar  to  that  used in the table that was  transmitted  with
  Notification to the Parties No. 916 of 20 June 1996.

3.For  species included in the table transmitted with Notification
  No.  916,  changes  from the 1996 export  quota  levels  may  be
  transmitted to the Secretariat on an annotated photocopy of  the
  relevant page of that table.

4.The  Parties  are invited to consider the following points  when
  deciding on the export quotas for 1997 and future years:

     i)    In  cases where the hunting season includes the end  of
     one  calendar  year  (1  January  to  31  December)  and  the
     beginning  of  the  next calendar year, the establishment  of
     export   quotas  relating  to  hunting  seasons  has  created
     misunderstandings  about the legality of  some  specimens  in
     trade.  The  Secretariat  therefore  urges  the  Parties   to
     distinguish  hunting quotas from export  quotas  and  to  set
     export quotas only in relation to the calendar year.

     ii)   Misunderstandings have also been created by the  export
     of specimens with a permit or certificate declaring that they
     were  exported under the export quota for the previous  year.
     To avoid further misunderstandings, the Secretariat urges the
     Parties  to make every effort to include in the export  quota
     for  each year specimens that, during the previous year, were
     legally acquired for export but not exported.

5.The  Secretariat  thanks the Parties in advance  for  their  co-
  operation and prompt action.