Domestic Ivory Market

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) on the knowledgeable way he introduced the debate. Although some hugely important issues are being debated this week, the excellent turnout in the Chamber shows that ivory is also an issue about which future generations will ask whether we did enough.

We are the dominant species on the planet, but not necessarily the wisest. We have overseen the extinction of countless species over the centuries. We have abused our power, which we should be using to repair the damage we have caused. As we have heard, 30,000 elephants die in Africa each year to supply the ivory trade. The Government committed to ban the ivory trade in their two most recent manifestos, and announced new proposals to restrict the sale of ivory. There is a general concern, which has already been discussed, that the proposals do not go far enough, as they do not cover ivory products dated before 1947. Some people think they will not substantially reduce the amount of ivory bought and sold in the UK.

We want the ownership of ivory products to be considered socially, morally and legally beyond the pale, but by exempting items from before a certain date, are we not in danger of watering down the message that the objectification of these magnificent creatures is unacceptable? The Government may class pre-1947 works as antiques, but does someone with an untrained eye—such as me and, I suspect, the vast majority of the population—know what is pre-1947 and what is not? It is clear that very few people working in customs have the necessary skills and expertise to know the difference. The date seems arbitrary. A total ban was promised in not one but two manifestos. That is what we should aim for.

This is not the time to dilute messages or measures. This is the last chance saloon. Between 2007 and 2014, the savannah elephant population declined by 30%, largely due to poaching. Forest elephants are declining by 9% per year. The Great Elephant Census, which reported in August 2016, showed that the current rate of decline in elephant numbers is 8% per year, primarily due to poaching.

Evidence shows that more elephants are being killed each year than are being born. History gives us a pretty clear warning about where that leads. Man hunted the woolly mammoth to extinction, but at least we did not then have the global picture to help us understand what we were doing. Then it was a case of survival for the hunter gatherers, but now it is about not survival but personal gratification, trade, greed and sometimes even sport—motivations we should consider abhorrent when talking about the murder of sentient animals.

Let us not forget that, when elephants are slaughtered, they are not without feeling or thought. The Nayaka people, who live in south Indian forests, told of “the elephant who walks alone”. It had a reputation for being aggressive and one day killed a human. The Indian authorities wanted to hunt it down as they considered it a risk, but the Nayaka people refused to help. They said that the elephant had seen its partner captured, which caused it to become angrier. They told the authorities that if they had seen their partner treated the same way, they would have reacted similarly. We all know the pain of losing a loved one, so let us be clear that, when those animals are killed, there is an emotional as well as a physical cost.

With an estimated value of between $15 billion and $20 billion annually, the illegal trade in wildlife is a lucrative market for criminals. It is one of the highest-value illicit trade sectors in the world. I agree that the existence of a legal ivory trade serves as a cover for illegal sales of ivory, and continues to perpetuate the cycle of supply and demand. It has been reported that, in recent years, a surge in demand for wildlife products, including ivory, has largely come from east and south-east Asian markets. I would like to hear from the Minister about whether there is more we can do to deal with the countries that the demand comes from. As the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) said, tackling the illegal activities in the countries in which poaching takes place is a huge challenge. Are we satisfied that we are doing all we can as a nation to tackle it?

I have to disagree with the hon. Members who spoke in support of the antiques trade. I do not believe that this can be described as a balancing act between the survival of elephants and the continuation of the antiques trade. The trade will carry on without ivory. It will adapt and survive, but elephants will not have that option if we carry on down this road.

There have been a number of speeches today, so I will be brief. I will conclude by naming several animals: the eastern cougar, the western black rhinoceros, the Japanese river otter, the Pinta island tortoise, the Cape Verde giant skink, the Formosan clouded leopard, the Scioto madtom, and the Bermuda saw-whet owl. It is not a particularly long list, but every name on it should serve as a warning to us that we are responsible for our actions—not just to each other, but to all other creatures on the planet. All those animals have been declared extinct in just the past five years. When advances in technology and understanding give us the power to do things that were unimaginable even 10 years ago, it is to our immense shame that there are still one or two extinctions every year. I do not want a list read out in three or four decades that includes elephants. This is our last chance. If it comes to pass that we read out a list of extinct animals that includes elephants in the future, the next generation will judge us harshly, and they will be right to do so.