Ivory Trade

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for securing this debate and for the way in which he introduced it. Certainly his points about the relationship to other crime, which were reinforced by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord St John, were very well made and I do not need to add to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Jones, said, this is a very timely debate, not just because of the work that the Independent has launched this week but also because of the meetings in Botswana and Paris this week—which is perhaps why the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, is not with us. I pay tribute to the work that he is doing on this issue. Of course, there is also the relationship with poverty. It is striking that the world’s most magnificent and, tragically, valuable animals are surrounded by the world’s poorest people and by some of the worst conflict in the world. That makes it particularly difficult to tackle this issue.

We have heard about the plight of elephants and rhinos. The Independent report suggests that as many as 52,000 elephants a year might now be lost due to poaching and that the population is 15% of what it was 20 years ago. I see from the National Wildlife Crime Unit that 234 items of ivory were seized in the UK last year alone. I also note from Defra’s strategic assessment of the National Wildlife Crime Unit from February 2011 that 12 rhinos a month were being lost in South Africa and Zimbabwe in 2011 due to this trade.

I was fortunate enough to see forest elephants in their natural environment in 2005 in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and I met with the rangers there. I was the first western visitor to the park for 10 years. I believe that every one of the rangers I met has subsequently died as a result of the activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army and from other conflict in that area. I went on from Virunga to Bukavu, principally to see how Darwin money from the UK Government was being spent to protect gorillas in the forests of the DRC. The rangers there made it clear to me that the forest elephants in that part of the world are hugely important to the eco-system because they effectively create the pathways through which the rest of the wildlife is able to move. The tragic fate of the forest elephants, which was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord St John, is having a serious impact on the rest of the eco-system. This is something that we should value beyond just the charismatic value of these extraordinary animals.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, explained the choices well. Do you stop the poaching and/or can you stop the market? Both clearly are really hard. We have seen from Tanzania the efforts being made by the president there in launching Operation Tokomeza, with its orders to shoot to kill elephant poachers. Clearly he is doing what he can and that reflects the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Jones, about being able to stop poaching. However, when this activity is sitting alongside such intense and difficult conflict and such intense poverty, stopping poaching is extremely difficult, certainly in those countries with porous borders. It is difficult to be optimistic.

In terms of stopping demand, I would be interested to know whether the Prime Minister in his visit to China was able, in among all the many important discussions he would have had there, to raise this issue with the Chinese. Clearly, that is a critical part of the market. Indeed, the irony when I was in the DRC all those years ago was that the Chinese were the people building the roads through the forest for the people and the elephants were making the roads for the animals. The demand from the Chinese appears to be removing that capacity.

I certainly congratulate the Government on the London conference, and Prince William and the Prince of Wales on their leadership on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord St John, mentioned the decision made in 2008 by the previous Government, of whom I was a member. That decision was debatable at best. It was made with good intentions in wanting to depress the price to reduce incentives to poachers and create revenue with the one-off sale for monitoring and enforcement against poachers. But I wonder whether the Government have learnt any lessons from that decision to allow one-off trade. Personally I regret the decision and it would be good now to see an unequivocal international ban on all forms of ivory trade, although I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

Beyond the work that is being done internationally, where the Government have a pretty good record in terms of international wildlife conservation, there are also measures that need to be taken internally to make sure that we have our own house in order as we try to assert our authority internationally. I remember seeing the Met’s Wildlife Crime Unit’s efforts at Heathrow and seeing the extraordinary range of different things from the wildlife trade that are seized there on a daily basis. I have already said how much ivory is seized by that unit.

What progress is being made in terms of updating COTES, which implements CITES in this country? I pay tribute to the World Society for the Protection of Animals for its contribution of £100,000 per year to the work of the National Wildlife Crime Unit. I understand that the Government contributed £136,000 for 2013-14, but there is no commitment to fund the unit beyond that. Can the Minister update us on whether the Government will commit funds beyond that, at least at the current level, particularly now that we have the Autumn Statement? Perhaps there is some news buried away in the lengthy documentation that not all of us have had a chance to absorb from today's announcement. Many of us in this debate would like to see funding extended beyond the current level, because there is some evidence that London is the centre for some of this trade. We need to ensure that we play our part in forcing through Home Office funding for that unit as well as the one in the Met.

I pay tribute to all those who have spoken in this brief but high-quality debate. I reinforce my congratulations to the Minister on the work that he is doing on the cause this week and my appreciation of the leadership particularly of Prince William in asserting the UK's role through the conference that we will have shortly. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s answers on funding for the units and what we are doing to make sure that we have as good a record as possible here in the UK to reinforce those international efforts.