Anti-Corruption Strategy: Illegal Wildlife Trade

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the anti-corruption strategy and the illegal wildlife trade.

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairship—not chairmanship—Mrs Moon. Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber know that we are all lobbied on animal issues: bees, foxhunting, which thankfully is not making a comeback, puppy smuggling and so on. Those issues are close to my heart, and as I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption—I see that my trusty co-chair, the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), is in his place—combating illegal rackets is never far from my mind, either. I see that the anti-corruption chair is also with us—sorry, champion, or is it tsar?

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Tsar.

[Dr Huq]

I would have liked to see a tsarina, but we have a tsar and he is in his place.

In this debate, we are considering both the illegal wildlife trade and anti-corruption. The two are not as decoupled as one might think; the phenomena overlap more than one might imagine. We all remember the heart breaking case of Cecil the lion. He was lured out of a protected reserve to be killed and dismembered as a trophy—that is vile and revolting—as was his son. That highlights how trading in wildlife occurs worldwide. That is the case in fact, and in fiction recently. We have had the Panama papers, the Paradise papers, and “McMafia” on television on Sunday nights. That has reminded us of anti-corruption, corrupt practices—all those sorts of thing. This debate brings the two together; there is a nexus between anti-corruption strategy and the illegal wildlife trade. Drugs, human trafficking and the illegal arms trade might be the more obvious associations with the word “corruption”, and they hit the headlines more, but the illegal wildlife trade is ranked fourth globally, in terms of transnational crime networks, after those three things. It is worth more than £17 billion a year. That is the Government’s estimate. We do not know, because the trade is illegal, but it could be worth more.

This debate therefore goes further than conservation matters. One often thinks that animal issues are for the big-hearted people who are concerned about furry and cute species. That is important, but issues of sustainability, endangered species, the damage to our ecosystems and biodiversity are all implicated in animal issues. Another issue is trafficked animals. As I said, the debate goes further. For a start, the trafficked animals that we are talking about include lizards such as chameleons, rhinos for their horns, elephants for their tusks, and pangolins, which were celebrated recently on World Pangolin Day—the Foreign Secretary feted that day of the year. Pangolins are hunted for their scales. None of those animals are furry at all; they are desired for their high-value body parts. All this stuff raises questions of transnational crime and corruption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

I completely agree. Both flora and fauna are handled by the EU body that deals with these things, and there is a worry about whether, when we leave the EU, we will still be covered. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the issue is not just cute, furry animals, scaly animals or whatever. Both fauna and flora are implicated in this vile trade.

The supply chains are complex. There are both poachers and traffickers. The ivory trade alone is estimated by the UN to be worth $62 million in east Asia, with approximately 75 tonnes of elephant ivory exported. It is not just, as one might imagine, one or two elephants being killed by rogue poachers. There is an industrial element to this organised crime—huge-scale shipments to foreign buyers at the other end. People get away with it because, in the words of Tom Cardamone in written testimony to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, this is “Low Risks, High Profits”.

[John Penrose]

As one of the chairs of the anti-corruption APPG, the hon. Lady is doing an excellent job in raising the very important nexus between illegal wildlife trading and the fight against corruption. Does she agree that perhaps the simplest way to look at the question of animal trafficking and poaching is to think of it rather like an extractive industry? Many of the risks that apply to mining or illegal logging and those sorts of thing also apply to the illegal traffic in both flora and fauna. If we think about it in that way, many of the same public policy responses, both in this country and in the countries of origin, will be effective if we can put them in place.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Criminal intelligence gets more and more complex as criminals find different ways to convert their ill-gotten gains. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the risks are the same, as are the effects of this crime on communities at the other end, which are often in the developed world, so he makes an excellent point.

This trade, if we can call it such, is popular with terrorist groups and militias. That relates to what the Government’s anti-corruption champion just said. The Sudan People’s Liberation Army in South Sudan, which was a rebel group but has now overthrown the person who was in power, has been partial to elephant poaching by grenade; and ivory poaching is a means by which the Janjaweed militia funds its activities in the same region.

The illegal wildlife trade goes much wider than being simply a peripheral concern of well-meaning people concerned with the world that we will leave to the next generation. The damage done is manifold, as the anti-corruption champion just told us. The corruption that supports illegal trading in wildlife poses threats to national security, as we have seen from the terror threat. It is seen by those who deal in it, like guns and drugs, as just another commodity and part and parcel of these organised crime networks. Bribery and corruption obscure the enforcement of existing laws—if there are bendable officials, that also mucks things up—and diminish efforts to strengthen them. Not everyone has an anti-corruption champion in the same way as we do, although the post was vacant for a while; I am very glad that the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) is occupying it now.

Credit where credit is due: the UK has not completely sat on its hands when it comes to anti-corruption efforts. We all remember David Cameron’s anti-corruption summit in May 2016—the whole world came to London. The strategy he promised at the time finally saw the light of day at the end of last year, as did the long awaited champion. It was almost smuggled out in the dead of night and not everyone seems to have noticed. Ultimately, we must do more.

One of my main concerns with the anti-corruption strategy is the lack of strong action on open registers of beneficial ownership in our overseas territories. We have said that before. The criminal gangs do not simply traffic in animal parts, but in drugs and arms. They launder their money through shell corporations. Again, we are dealing with these secrecy jurisdictions and mysterious properties with questionable ownership. I think there are whole streets in London where we do not know who owns them and dirty money is parked there.