Hoodia and CITES certificate: PDF Print E-mail
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Majority of the people know that CITES certificate is very essential but do not actually know what it is all about. Hoodia gordonii is a plant that at present, is found only in five nations. They are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and a few parts of North America. But the only international markets that are open to buyers and exporters are South Africa and Namibia. The Hoodia gordonii plant is so rare that it has to be put into the category of endangered species. A number of controls and rules have been put across concerning the harvesting and exporting of Hoodia gordonii in order to avoid the plant from extinction. The CITES certificate is a part of this control.

CITES refers to Convention on International in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. It is an international agreement between governments. The utmost goal of this agreement is to safeguard the endangered species and make certain that the international trade does not put an end to it.

Prior to exporting Hoodia gordonii from South Africa any group must get a CITES certificate. The validity of these CITES certificates is up to six months. The group will have to re-apply for another certificate before legally exporting it from South Africa if in case it wasn’t exported within 6 months. Each ship container that leaves the South African ports with Hoodia gordonii must have CITES certificate.  The date that is mention in the CITES certificate refers to when it was issued to the exporting company. This is essential because a few clients believe that in order for the CITES to be valid, the date that is mentioned in the certificate has to be recent. In case the date mentioned in the certificate is quite old it does not mean that it is no valid or false. It just means that the company that exported the Hoodia was a bit late to send it through ship or might also had a large shipment that endured for quite a long time or may be both.  It means that a few companies would wait till the sixth month and then ship their Hoodia. In this circumstance, the CITES certificate would be six months old already even before it leaves the port. Apart form this, the shipment would also contain several containers of Hoodia gordonii and would take a long time to get sold. As the CITES is with the original shipment, there are chances that the date on the CITES certificate is several months old. Thus as you come across the CITES certificates on the websites of companies selling Hoodia remember the above points.

The name of the company that is mentioned on the CITES certificate is not necessarily the name of the company that sells the end product. Take for instance you want to purchase a particular brand of Hoodia and when actually go to their website and go through their CITES certificate everything would match except for the company name. It is very obvious for questions to pop up in your mind regarding the validity of the CITES certificate as the name of the company mentioned is totally different. You just have to keep in mind that it is not always necessary for the name mentioned in the certificate to be the same as the company name.

There are only a few companies that are given CITES certificate to export Hoodia gordonii from South Africa. A few of these companies are suppliers of raw materials. They export raw materials and later sell it to the companies that produce the supplement who make use of these raw materials in their products. Thus the name of the company mentioned in the certificate could be the supplier of raw materials. It was this company that had applied for the certificate and exported Hoodia gordonii from South Africa. They would have later sold it to the actual company. It is normal in the supplement industry to by raw materials from raw materials suppliers who purchase the raw materials and later sell it to the supplement companies. Do not consider the CITES certificate to be fake if the name mentioned in the certificate does not match with the actual company that sells the finished product.   

Lastly, you have to remember that the CITES certificate is not an evidence to say how good the Hoodia gordonii that is used in the supplement actually is. The CITES certificate is just an evidence that company was offered the permission to export a particular amount of Hoodia gordonii from South Africa. Once the supply is exported, the supplier as well as the company that purchases Hoodia from the supplier is free to do whatever they wish to.

Any company can say that the element used in the supplement is pure Hoodia gordonii and may also show the CITES certificate to prove that they do make use of authentic Hoodia gordonii. But the amount of pure Hoodia gordonii that is used is completely decided and known only by the company. Thus you should always rely on the lab test results. Only scientific test could say the actual amount of authentic Hoodia gordonii is really being used in any particular Hoodia supplement.
 
 
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