NEW DELHI — The Ambani zoo has once again been drawn into a global wildlife trade controversy, as the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) overturned an earlier decision to restrict India’s imports of endangered animals at a meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. India, the United States, Japan, and Brazil were among those who said the move offered no proof that illegal puppy imports into Britain had occurred, Reuters reported Nov. 23, 2025.
Just weeks ago, the CITES Secretariat called on India to cease issuing new import permits for its most at-risk species after inspectors visited Ambani’s zoo complex, Vantara, in Gujarat and raised concerns about discrepancies between export and import data and gaps in checks to ensure animals were genuinely captive-bred. That hard-hitting visit report – described by The Wire – had recommended a temporary pause while India introduced additional checks and reported back to the treaty body.
But here in Samarkand, many governments cautioned against punishing India at this late date, so soon before the world conference of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species was to open. India’s delegate argued that it had improved its vetting process for imported goods and that Vantara had been approved domestically, while the committee chair found no momentum to delay the previous recommendation.
Vantara, known as the Ambani zoo in reference to billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s family, is a 3,500-acre animal rescue and rehabilitation center near Jamnagar, developed by Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani. It is home to thousands of animals from more than 2,000 species, largely brought in from Africa and Latin America; it has been promoted as a private ark for damaged or surplus animals rather than a conventional public zoo.
Vantara has divided conservationists since the first elephants and big cats moved in. A 2024 profile in The Straits Times cited fears that a massive, privately owned collection could obfuscate the line between rescue and spectacle, but it also noted the facility’s advanced veterinary care and [the Ambani family’s insistence] ((https://foreignpolicy.com/animal-addiction-rove-mcmanus-wild-things-discovery-streaming-zoo-laws/) that all the animals had been legally sourced.
Those investigations have also cast doubt on Vantara’s involvement in the seamy trade in rare species. A 2024 analysis by Mongabay of the global market for the critically endangered Spix’s macaw noted that the Indian facility was not formally involved in a recovery program, despite birds traced to European traffickers being steered toward the Jamnagar operation.
In a long-form January 1, 2020 investigation titled “The Costs of Reliance’s Wildlife Ambitions,” published on the True Story Award site, the acclaimed journalist detailed conflicts of interest in India’s zoo permitting system and alleged that regulators who once facilitated clearance for the Ambani zoo later joined its payroll—as well as, more broadly, activists’ long-simmering concerns about regulatory capture.
Now, India’s government relies on a September decision by its Supreme Court that accepted the findings of a Special Investigation Team clearing Vantara of illegal animal acquisition, abuse , or financial mismanagement. The SIT report, whose main findings were first reported by Reuters, said the facility was in line with both domestic wildlife law and international obligations.
Critics contend that it did little to assuage fears about the number of animals used and their origins. The findings of a recent biodiversity audit reported by Mongabay India have suggested that the Supreme Court’s investigation leaned too heavily on documents provided by the zoo and regulators, with subsequent field checks conducted for CITES finding discrepancies between trade paperwork and calls to step up enforcement.
The same CITES checks, however, also provided India with key talking points in Samarkand. A business-oriented article on Storyboard18 noted that the Secretariat included India in its top tier of compliance and found no evidence that livestock entered the country without proper CITES permits or that Vantara traded them commercially.
International concern has been mounting all year. The world’s rarest species. Leading wildlife experts had been quoted by Hürriyet Daily News in November as urging India to halt imports of the world’s rarest species, saying large numbers had been acquired by Vantara and that there were huge discrepancies between the animals the zoo said it held and what CITES teams had actually counted on site.
Indian media also delved into the legal fracas that brought about CITES’ original “no more imports” declaration. An explainer in The Indian Express pointed out that while CITES allows trade in captive-bred animals under certain conditions, India’s Wildlife Protection Act restricts zoos to trading animals only with recognised zoos, making Ambani zoo imports highly dependent on that captive-bred paperwork.
Journalists from Europe have also increased the pressure. A painstaking investigation in Le Monde traced Democratic Republic of Congo chimpanzees that ended up with Vantara back to export permits from CITES — mismatches between the identification numbers on the permits and the animals actually received in India — raising fears that legal trade channels can cover up illicit sourcing.
New Delhi had mounted a vigorous diplomatic push in the run-up to Sunday’s reversal. Another Reuters article on Nov. 12 reported that Indian officials had urged CITES to avoid blanket curbs, saying it had “strengthened vetting of permits used by private groups” and that punishing a country already under the microscope would send the wrong signal to nations ploughing money into captive rescue centres.
The result: India can continue to legally import wildlife species in Appendix I, which include elephants, greater cats, and great apes — as long as the paperwork for those permits is filled out correctly. But countries, including Belgium, and advocacy groups such as the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance have warned that, without independent on-the-ground checks at facilities like Ambani zoo, the decision risks legitimising opaque trade chains.
For now, CITES has left the door open to reconsidering India’s case should its promised changes run out of steam or new evidence emerge. The grudging U-turn may smooth over immediate diplomatic friction on the eve of the Samarkand world wildlife conference, but it ensures Ambani Zoo and its animals will serve as a test case for how global rules govern powerful private collections.
