13 November 2013: The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the UN Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the European Union have announced the release of ‘Species+,’ a new online information management resource for globally protected species covered under CITES, CMS and the EU Wildlife Trade Regulations.

Species+ provides a website where the current listing of species in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), their taxonomy, distribution and common names, as well as the trade restrictions affecting them can be accessed. This website replaces the UN Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) Species Database, the CITES Species Database, and the European Union Wildlife Trade Regulations Database. Data from the new CMS species database will be integrated through web feeds in a future release of Species+.

Species+ is meant to assist CITES and CMS Parties and stakeholders, allowing them to download up-to-date information about species of interest as well as CITES trade suspensions and quotas from a single source. Future enhancements of the website will aim to incorporate the CITES trade data, provide computer-to-computer connections to national systems so that Parties can “pull” species information and link Species+ to other data sources and mapping tools.

Species+ was developed by UNEP-WCMC in a joint project with the CITES Secretariat to provide services for the CITES Secretariat, the European Union, and the CMS Secretariat.[CMS News] [CITES News] [UNEP-WCMC News] [Species+ website]