Agarwood and conservation: CITES explained

CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is the treaty that governs cross-border trade in agarwood. It does not ban the trade. It regulates it, through a permit system meant to keep commercial harvest from pushing wild populations towards extinction. This guide explains what that system requires, what it exempts, and how it connects to the conservation picture covered in wild vs plantation agarwood and the history of agarwood trade.

Rules and thresholds are updated from time to time by CITES and by national authorities. Treat the figures below as a reliable general framework, and confirm current requirements with the relevant CITES Management Authority or customs agency before shipping, importing or travelling with agarwood.

What CITES is, and why it covers agarwood

CITES is a multilateral treaty agreed in 1973 that regulates international trade in species at risk from that trade. It works through appendices. Appendix I covers the most threatened species, for which commercial international trade is essentially prohibited. Appendix II covers species that are not necessarily threatened with extinction now but could become so without trade controls, and this is the appendix that applies to agarwood. Appendix II does not stop trade. It requires that trade be permitted, recorded and judged sustainable.

How agarwood came under CITES protection

Agarwood was listed in two stages. At the 1994 Conference of the Parties, a proposal from India to list Aquilaria malaccensis, then the most heavily traded agarwood species, in Appendix II was adopted, taking effect in February 1995. It was the first time an agarwood species came under binding international trade controls.

That left the other Aquilaria species and the whole Gyrinops genus outside CITES for about a decade, despite facing the same market pressure. The gap was closed at the thirteenth Conference of the Parties, held in Bangkok in 2004, when a proposal led by Indonesia extended Appendix II to every species in both genera, with effect from January 2005.

What the listing covers, and what it does not

The Aquilaria and Gyrinops listing carries what CITES calls an annotation, a set of notes specifying which parts and products the listing applies to. In practice, raw wood, chips, powder and oil are controlled and need permits to cross borders. The annotation excludes certain items, including seeds and pollen, seedlings or tissue cultures in sterile containers, fruits, leaves, and exhausted agarwood powder. It also excludes finished products packaged and ready for retail sale, with an important exception: beads, prayer beads and carvings remain controlled.

That distinction matters more than it might seem. A kilogram of raw chips and a boxed bottle of agarwood perfume on a shop shelf are not treated the same way, even though both come from the same protected genera. Annotations are revised from time to time, so check the current wording before relying on an exemption for anything commercial.

Permits and non-detriment findings: how legal trade works

For trade covered by the listing, the exporting country's CITES Management Authority issues an export permit for each shipment. Before it does, the country's CITES Scientific Authority has to make a non-detriment finding, a formal judgement that the export will not harm the survival of the species in the wild. Permits are issued per shipment rather than as open licences, and they specify the species, quantity, product type, exporter and importer. Many importing countries also check permits or require their own documentation before a shipment clears customs.

Non-detriment findings have real consequences. In 2024, after a report by the Botanical Survey of India, India was removed from CITES Review of Significant Trade for A. malaccensis, and its export quota for cultivated agarwood was raised, with the quota for wild material set at zero. That example is covered in why is agarwood so expensive?

Bringing agarwood home: the personal effects allowance

Travellers carrying small personal quantities of agarwood do not normally need a CITES permit, under the personal and household effects provisions in CITES Resolution Conf. 13.7. For agarwood, the allowance is up to 1 kilogram of woodchips, 24 millilitres of oil, and two sets of beads or prayer beads, or two necklaces or bracelets, per person. Amounts above these limits fall outside the exemption.

This is an international framework, not a guarantee of an easy border crossing. Countries implement and enforce it differently, and customs practice changes. If you are carrying anything close to these limits, or anything that looks commercial, check with customs authorities in both the departure and destination countries first. Buying abroad is covered in buying agarwood in Southeast Asia.

How threatened is wild agarwood?

The conservation case behind these rules is well documented. The IUCN Red List assesses Aquilaria malaccensis as Critically Endangered, in an assessment published in 2018, reflecting heavy harvesting for agarwood, weak monitoring, illegal trade and loss of the forests where it once grew. Other Aquilaria and Gyrinops species have their own separate assessments, but the pattern is broadly consistent: sustained demand for wild material has driven serious decline.

That gap is why plantation cultivation has expanded so substantially across producing countries, a shift covered in wild vs plantation agarwood.

What this means when you are buying

For most buyers, CITES is less about paperwork they file themselves and more about a basic legitimacy check on the seller. Agarwood moved across borders in any commercial quantity should be backed by documentation somewhere in the supply chain, even if that documentation never reaches the customer. Sellers who are vague or dismissive about sourcing and legality, especially for material labelled wild, are a meaningful red flag. See red flags when buying agarwood and trusted agarwood suppliers.