CROSSING BORDERS

On March 5, 2026, new rules went into effect, requir­ing CITES per­mits for all inter­na­tion­al sales of exist­ing and new Per­nam­bu­co bows, which require proof that the wood was har­vest­ed before the species went under inter­na­tion­al pro­tec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007.

Bows will con­tin­ue to move free of per­mit require­ments when cross­ing inter­na­tion­al bor­ders for per­for­mances, repairs, and oth­er spe­cif­ic activ­i­ties that do not result in a change of own­er­ship. How­ev­er, if you plan to trav­el, it is advis­able to have on hand some form of doc­u­men­ta­tion that con­firms that you are trav­el­ing for one of the exempt pur­pos­es, and present that doc­u­men­ta­tion only if asked by bor­der offi­cials. View our detailed recommendations

The Con­ven­tion on Inter­na­tion­al Trade in Endan­gered Species of Wild Fau­na and Flo­ra (CITES) is a treaty that reg­u­lates inter­na­tion­al trade in ani­mal and plant species. It pro­vides a frame­work for coop­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion among its mem­ber Par­ties (most coun­tries glob­al­ly) to ensure that inter­na­tion­al trade in spec­i­mens of ani­mal and plant species is legal and does not threat­en their sur­vival in the wild.

Species are list­ed in three CITES Appen­dices, each pro­vid­ing a dif­fer­ent lev­el of con­trol over trade. As a musi­cian, orches­tra, or music ensem­ble, you might be aware that mate­r­i­al used in musi­cal instru­ments, such as ivory, lizard skin, and Brazil­ian rose­wood, is already under CITES control.

CITES Par­ties meet every two to three years at the Con­fer­ence of Par­ties (CoP) to re-eval­u­ate con­trols species-by-species. Groups rep­re­sent­ing music stake­hold­ers par­tic­i­pate in these pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions and the lat­est one con­clud­ed in Decem­ber 2025 in Uzbek­istan (CoP20).

Since Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007, the Per­nam­bu­co wood used in bows has been includ­ed under CITES Appen­dix II, with rules that require any wood mate­r­i­al export­ed from Brazil (up to the unfin­ished “bow blank” stage) to be legal­ly and sus­tain­ably har­vest­ed and accom­pa­nied by CITES per­mits when trad­ed internationally.

As of Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023, CITES per­mits were also required for all Per­nam­bu­co wood the first time it leaves Brazil – includ­ing fin­ished bows as they leave Brazil. The newest rules that went into effect on March 5, 2026 require CITES per­mits for all inter­na­tion­al sales of Per­nam­bu­co mate­r­i­al world­wide, while exempt­ing most trav­el from per­mit require­ments. The spe­cif­ic rules and addi­tion­al actions CITES Par­ties will take are out­lined in a detailed CITES pol­i­cy state­ment. CITES Par­ties adopt­ed these mea­sures at CoP20 in an effort to halt traf­fick­ing of Per­nam­bu­co wood and bows and to pro­tect wild pop­u­la­tions of Pernambuco.

Now that CITES is reg­u­lat­ing bows as fin­ished prod­ucts for all future inter­na­tion­al sales, it is wise to proac­tive­ly iden­ti­fy the mate­r­i­al in your bow and doc­u­ment that the wood was har­vest­ed from the wild pri­or to Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007. Doc­u­men­ta­tion of these facts is a help­ful way to estab­lish that your bow could qual­i­fy for a CITES per­mit if it is ever resold across inter­na­tion­al borders.

Seek out a bow­mak­er or luthi­er to eval­u­ate the mate­r­i­al and con­firm the wood in the bow. You can ask for a writ­ten dec­la­ra­tion from a bow­mak­er or expert eval­u­a­tor describ­ing the mate­r­i­al in the bow. Many old­er bows do not have iden­ti­fy­ing marks from their mak­er. Make the best effort to col­lect the following: 

– Dat­ed third-par­ty instru­ment eval­u­a­tion, not­ing mak­er, approx­i­mate year made, and material

– Iden­ti­fy­ing pho­tographs, includ­ing any mark­ings or dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the bow

Bows made and locat­ed out­side of Brazil pri­or to Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007 (when Per­nam­bu­co was first includ­ed under CITES Appen­dix II) are con­sid­ered “pre-Con­ven­tion” under CITES, which means that no his­toric CITES paper­work (e.g., per­mits) con­nect­ed with the wood used to make the bow was required. For bows made after Sept. 13, 2007 out­side of Brazil, con­fir­ma­tion that the wood was export­ed from Brazil pri­or to Sept. 13, 2007 or was trad­ed inter­na­tion­al­ly with a CITES per­mit or pre-Con­ven­tion cer­tifi­cate can help estab­lish its legal ori­gin. Fin­ished bows export­ed from Brazil on or after Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023 must have been accom­pa­nied by a valid CITES export per­mit issued in Brazil. In case you decide to re-sell your bow in the future, your buy­er will prob­a­bly ask you to pro­vide the doc­u­ments out­lined above as evi­dence of its legal origin.

Make a best effort to doc­u­ment your bow’s birth­date, pur­chase date, and loca­tion. While the doc­u­men­ta­tion require­ments for per­mits will vary from coun­try to coun­try, the fol­low­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion can help estab­lish legal­i­ty of exist­ing bows:

– Dat­ed receipts of sale

– Dat­ed insur­ance policy

– A signed affi­davit attest­ing to the date (or approx­i­mate date) the bow came into your own­er­ship out­side of Brazil

– A signed state­ment from the mak­er ver­i­fy­ing the bow was legal­ly crafted.

Estab­lish­ing own­er­ship of your bow pri­or to Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007 can be a sim­ple way of prov­ing that the wood was legal­ly har­vest­ed from the wild. If your bow was made and sold after Sep­tem­ber 13, 2007, you may need to con­tact the mak­er or sell­er and ask for documentation.

In most cas­es, rules for pur­chas­ing a bow domes­ti­cal­ly, in your home coun­try, have not changed. How­ev­er, it is essen­tial to ask for paper­work for any bow pur­chase. Most bow mak­ers are now well-informed about the new legal envi­ron­ment and are aware that cus­tomers are seek­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion. If you are pur­chas­ing a new bow from out­side your home coun­try, you must ensure that CITES per­mits have been obtained and that the bow is trans­port­ed to you through loca­tions where offi­cials can thor­ough­ly stamp the per­mits. These ful­ly stamped per­mits should be kept as proof that the bow was legal­ly acquired. These same require­ments are in place whether a bow is shipped to you, or you trav­el to pur­chase it and hand car­ry it home. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact your nation­al CITES author­i­ty.

Remem­ber: a CITES per­mit is not required when trav­el­ing with a fin­ished bow unless it con­tains oth­er mate­r­i­al cov­ered under CITES con­trols, such as sea tur­tle or ele­phant ivory. The new rules for Per­nam­bu­co state that trav­el is exempt from per­mit require­ments for “fin­ished musi­cal instru­ments, fin­ished musi­cal instru­ment acces­sories and fin­ished musi­cal instru­ment parts for non-com­mer­cial trade only for the pur­pose of paid and unpaid per­for­mance, per­son­al use, dis­play, loan, com­pe­ti­tion, teach­ing, appraisal, or repair, pro­vid­ed that this does not change the own­er­ship and that such trans­port is not for sale, trans­fer or dis­pos­al of the spec­i­men out­side of the owner’s usu­al State of residence.”

If you plan to trav­el, it is advis­able to have on hand some form of doc­u­men­ta­tion that con­firms that you are trav­el­ing for one of the exempt pur­pos­es, and present that doc­u­men­ta­tion only if asked by bor­der officials.

View our detailed recommendations

We all have a vital­ly impor­tant role to play in ensur­ing the con­ser­va­tion of the Per­nam­bu­co species in Brazil and the future health of the threat­ened for­est ecosys­tem in which it grows. Ful­ly com­ply­ing with the new rules and being an informed con­sumer are essen­tial first steps.

Learn more about how you can sup­port the Inter­na­tion­al Per­nam­bu­co Con­ser­va­tion Ini­tia­tive and its work to sus­tain the species and find more infor­ma­tion here: IPCI Ger­many, IPCI Cana­da, IPCI USA, Inter­na­tion­al Alliance of Vio­lin and Bow Mak­ers for Pro­tect­ed Species, infor­ma­tion in French.