CITES - Ethical trade in exotic leather products

Exotic leather products made from special species such as alligator, caiman, crocodile, python, lizard and shark. Applies to all reptiles. These and others require a CITES certificate to be legally imported into Norway. You must have an import license for legal import.

CITES stands for "Convention on International Trade in Endangered S"species of wild fauna and flora" - Endangered species act of 1973, which most countries in the world follow. In Norway, it is the Environmental Directorate based in Trondheim that are experts in the field, see the list at http://www.environmentagency.no/cites/Bredal & Partnere currently only accepts exotic leather goods from the USA. Many leather goods are transfer items from other countries, but all products are checked by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington.

They have their local representatives who come to the factories and tape as well as hand over the packages directly to UPS Global service for shipment to Norway.

The USA has the absolute best practices in this area in the world and is a role model for how to enforce rules and protect vulnerable animal species. For example, American alligators were protected for 20 years while a natural and conscious model for the species' distribution and maintenance was developed. Today, there are more than 1 million wild alligators in Louisiana and over 1 million wild alligators in Florida. At the same time, there are over 300,000 alligators spread across more than 50 farms. 10% of all farmed alligators are released every other year. The skins mainly go to Asia and some to France and Italy as well as Russia. The meat is healthy and tastes just right when prepared as a mix of chicken and shrimp. This is also a large industry. It is not CITES on sturgeon, bison and ray.

See Louisiana's Alligator Advisory Council's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3hGwQuGypk