The Checklist of CITES species provides the official alphabetical list of CITES species, their scientific synonyms, their common names in English, French and Spanish (to the extent that these were available to the compilers) and an indication of the Appendix in which they are listed. The publication also includes a section entitled the Annotated CITES Appendices and reservations, which provides the original listing date of all taxa (orders, families, genera, species, subspecies) and populations specifically named in the current or past Appendices. It also indicates all reservations ever made by Parties, with the dates on which they entered into force and, in the case of past reservations, the dates on which they were withdrawn.

The 2008 edition has been extensively revised and includes the numerous changes to standard nomenclature and to the Appendices adopted at the 14th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (The Hague, 2007). The user-friendliness of the CD-ROM has also been optimized and new sections added.

This publication should be particularly useful to CITES Management and Scientific Authorities, Customs officials and all others involved in implementing and enforcing the Convention.