8th December, 2022

The AMA supports efforts to streamline and consolidate permits for musical instruments containing CITES listed species. This is a constructive international effort to manage the regulation of endangered species and how that interacts with our industry and individual musicians.

The Samuel Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act found that “Wildlife trade and permitting requirements do not align with Australia’s international obligations, are inflexible and unnecessarily burdensome”, recommended: “introduce musical instrument passports and accept overseas musical instrument passports”.

Today, Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek announced the response to the Samuel Review, which says “The government will streamline and improve wildlife trade permit requirements to retain consistency with international obligations”. This implies agreement with that recommendation, we expect more detail to follow. 

This is a step in the right direction and the AMA will always be a willing and constructive partner in consultation around endangered species and musical instruments, as we did around CoP19 this year.

This is a major reform which includes a new agency & changing Australia’s central piece of environment protection legislation. We maintain an interest in specific parts of this work that relate to musical instruments. There is a lot more involved that we do not specialise in.

See: Minister’s Announcement | Government Response to the Samuel Review