Trophy Hunting Imports

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Hosie. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). We often do not agree on many policies in relation to Brexit and so on, but when we worked together on the Select Committee on International Development we agreed on fundamental issues, including helping the poorest countries in the world and animal welfare. I pay tribute to all her work in Parliament on those issues, and she will no doubt continue that work in the future.

This crucial debate is important to many of my constituents and to the public across the United Kingdom. The hon. Lady provided a detailed, passionate overview of the issue, and I agree with her words and with her asks of the Minister. We do not necessarily have to unite on a cross-party basis around some of the issues that the public and MPs currently find so difficult, but animal welfare is a unifying issue for MPs and for people in each of the nations of the United Kingdom. I am therefore pleased that we are having this important debate today, and I hope that the Government will address the issue in the Queen’s Speech.

I thank the other Members who have contributed today. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) described trophy hunting as barbaric and unnecessary and went on to advance the alternatives that exist in this day and age. Indeed, he referenced the wild goat that was shot in Scotland, about which I received a full mailbag from my constituents, with many asking, “How brave is it to shoot a goat? How can that give pleasure? What exactly is the point?” It is not so much about conservation but, I dare to say, more about the ego of the person involved. My constituents were appalled by that individual and want to see movement on the issue.

The hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) is a real champion of animal welfare. We are usually lining up to have our photograph taken with pledges to support animal welfare, and I am pleased that he hosted a meeting of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation at the Conservative conference this week. The foundation is kind enough to send me a Christmas card every year, so Lorraine Platt is doing well by boosting not only animal welfare issues in the Conservative party but cross-party efforts to bring everybody on board, so I pay tribute to her.

Westminster Hall would not be the same if the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) were not sitting in his place right behind me. He outlined eloquently the difference between hunting for food and trophy hunting, and stated plainly that trophy hunting is not acceptable today; we need to move with the times. In my constituency and others across the UK, young people are so enthused by doing all they can for the planet, through addressing environmental issues and conservation. They are saying to MPs in this House, “Get on with it; do this work.” In this day and age, it is those issues that are top of their priority list.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that young people are interested in the planet. When DFID was set up in 1997, it was principally focused on people, rather than the planet. Does she agree that the time has come to recalibrate our approach on deploying our international aid so that it truly focuses on and prioritises preserving the planet?

[Dr Cameron]

As the hon. Gentleman may be aware, DFID has a presence in my constituency, and I am so very proud of the work that it does to eradicate poverty the world over. I believe that conservation is commensurate with the sustainable development goals, because it is not only about animal welfare; it is about helping the communities located where those endangered species are. It is about making sure that those communities have another source of income; that people and animals can cohabit. We must do everything possible on both issues, and I will be interested to hear from the Minister how the two can be married together. We must ensure that aid goes to the poorest and that no one is left behind. I have a particular passion for helping disabled children into school in developing countries, but I do not see a contradiction in helping the poorest communities and working on conservation and, in the main, I do not believe that colleagues across the House would either.

In November 2018 the Minister lodged early-day motion 1829, which was signed by 166 MPs cross-party, including myself. It asked the Government to commit to halting imports of hunting trophies as a matter of urgency. I am very pleased that the Minister is in his place today, and not just because of that issue. He also did a lot of cross-party work with the all-party parliamentary dog advisory welfare group on Lucy’s law, which will now become law not just in England, but in Wales and Scotland. We are extremely pleased about that.

As has been said, 86% of the public support a ban on trophy hunting. I pay tribute to the Campaign to Ban Trophy Hunting, Born Free and Stop Ivory for placing these issues at the forefront of our minds, so that we can see what is happening. I had a look at the statistics. Although progress is being made on elephant populations and larger cat populations—not enough, but some progress—people are now reverting to hunting bears, cranes, antelopes, rhinoceroses and, would you believe it, crocodiles. Perhaps they have watched too many “Crocodile Dundee” films. Other species are up 29.2% as well; I am not sure what species those are, and it would be interesting to find out more, particularly whether any of those species are at risk.

Many trophy hunters use the rationale that they kill the old, the weak or the sick, and that they are therefore helping conservation. That is rarely proven by the egotistical photographs that are put up online, with the hunter standing next to the biggest, the rarest and the largest animals with the biggest horns. It is much more about ego than any effort towards conservation.

A current loophole allows hunters from the UK to import trophies of animals, many so rare that they have been declared extinct in the wild. For example, puffins are often hunted and the trophies brought to the UK, despite the UK Government’s efforts to save the species. Online websites are easily found offering these grisly puffin hunters trips costing around £3,000 to Iceland, where they have the chance to kill a bag of puffins and can boast of shooting up to 100 at a time. The species is classified as endangered in the 2018 “State of the World’s Birds” report, but is not listed for protection by CITES, the body that regulates the international animal trade. British people are bringing home puffin carcases in their hundreds and the puffin is at risk of becoming extinct, with uncontrolled hunting a leading cause.

I was proud to lead for the Scottish National party on the Bill that became the Ivory Act 2018. As a party, we welcome that historic legislation and the UK Government’s progress on tackling the illegal ivory trade and trophy hunting. Organised crime is often behind the individuals involved in that trade, as it offers big money, so we need to tackle it at the root. I was pleased—actually, emotionally quite overcome—to visit Sheldrick Wildlife Trust the day before the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire, I believe, with the International Development Committee. We were able to spend time with orphaned elephants there. Now, I have quite short legs, but the little elephants only came up to my waist, which shows how small they were. Some, only a few days or a few weeks old, were being bottle-fed, because the hunters were after their parents and left the little baby elephants behind, unable to survive on their own. This fantastic project goes out and saves them from otherwise certain death in the wild, but still, they will not have had the life they should have had. They should live with their herd, not be raised in those circumstances.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I missed the beginning of the hon. Lady’s account. Could she clarify whether the victims—the parents of those elephants—were poached or hunted for trophies? There is a huge difference.

[Dr Cameron]

I did not get the details of what had happened to all the parents. I imagine it was a mixture of the two, but mainly poaching, because organised crime is behind a lot of that activity. However, trophy hunting does not help when saving the species.

I believe that the Department for International Development could support this work, and there is no contradiction in that. It would help some of the most rural and impoverished communities. I would like some money to go toward training local people as wardens, giving them the opportunity of jobs and livelihoods. Finally, will the Minister reinforce and re-endorse his own early-day motion calling for a ban on trophy hunting imports as a matter of urgency?