Anti-Corruption Strategy: Illegal Wildlife Trade

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on initiating this crucial debate. Given what she has said about the scale of the illegal wildlife trade and its connection to corruption, will she join me in supporting the Environmental Investigation Agency’s campaign for the UN convention against corruption to be amended to include the illegal wildlife trade? It currently does not, and no cases have been pursued by that agency. That ought to change.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman, who is well known for his love of animals and has fought for many years on these issues and other environmental matters, makes a very valid point. I do not know in detail the document to which he refers, but it sounds as if a horrible loophole needs to be closed immediately, so I am grateful to him for drawing that to my attention.

I want to address the Government’s slightly lacklustre, “could do better” efforts to date at combating the illegal wildlife trade’s contribution to money laundering and organised crime. I have tabled written questions, as many hon. Members have—a lot of them are here today—and quite often the answer given is that the Government will be hosting a summit in London in October to address these matters, or they state sums of money that have been spent on this issue. To the layperson, a sum of money is a bit intangible. It is a figure; they cannot see what is actually happening. The October summit seems to be the answer to all our ills, but I have a series of questions for the end of my speech about specific things that I would like to happen.

As my co-chair of the APPG will know, the elephant in the room—ha-ha—on all this and on the anti-corruption strategy, which thankfully has now been published, is the slowness of the UK not just to encourage but to ensure that all our overseas territories adopt public registers of beneficial interest as soon as possible. I know that that issue is not quite within the Minister’s remit, but if she could pass it on to her colleagues, that would be great.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huq]

Right, let us stick to the point. To stamp out poaching would cut off the source, which we need to do so that animal carcases are not exported at all, let alone the body parts. We have spoken about the products at the other end. I think there are some studies that show that only 3% to 5% of income from commercial hunting goes to local communities. The rest goes into central Government, agencies, international corporations, terrorists and all sorts of other destinations.

The consultation on the ivory ban last autumn was very welcome, but it has all gone a bit quiet since it closed last year. We are already in March, so when will the results surface? The ban needs to be more than just virtue signalling. There need to be proper measures for combating the ivory trade at source.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I just want to make one point and follow it up with a question. Since the summit initiated by David Cameron, there has been huge progress. Only a few weeks ago, China closed down every one of its ivory carving factories, which will have a huge impact in reducing demand in China. There have been all kinds of ripple effects across the world as a consequence of that early summit. Demand is being tackled at a very high level. As a country, we can take a lot of credit for that. Everyone expects that the consultation will result in a pretty clear position by this Government—the position that most people want the Government to take. The one concern I have is that it will not go far enough in terms of species. It is not just about elephant ivory. If the elephant ivory market is closed down, there will be a move—we are already seeing signs of this—towards other ivory bearing species, such as the walrus, the narwhal, what other species?

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Rhinos.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Rhinos do not produce ivory. There are other ivory-bearing species. Therefore my hope—I hope the Minister will acknowledge this later—is that the ban will be on not just elephant ivory, but all ivory.

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. China has introduced a total ban. That is what we would like from our Government. It is not often that we are following China. Usually we are leadership and not followership. He is absolutely right that this concerns other species as well. I think the famous chess set that people talk about came from walrus tusks, so it is not only elephants. I feel there has been a slowing in some of those laudable aims, perhaps because the bandwidth of the Government is being reduced by other issues—nobody foresaw Brexit at the time of that first anti-corruption summit. We can go further and faster.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thought of the third species: the hippo. There are only 100,000 hippos in the world, which is extraordinary. If there is any increase in demand for hippo ivory as a replacement for elephant ivory, they are finished. I wanted to put the lovely, noble hippo on the record as well.

[Dr Huq]

Is the song about hippos “Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud”, or am I misremembering that from my long-ago youth? Yes, the hippos are a valiant species.

We are one of the largest countries to export ivory to south-east Asia. As the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) said, this can create desire and demand for people to own these products as things with a luxury status. We need to work with China and other south-east Asian Governments to ensure that demand is dampened and even destroyed, and that ivory’s cultural cachet—that it is a cool thing to have—falls.

In this post-referendum situation, as we head towards Brexit, there is a potential opportunity to promote other British luxury goods as alternatives to ivory in this brave new world we are heading to, which not all of us wanted to go to. I want to put on record the work done by my constituent Duncan McNair of Save the Asian Elephants—he deserves praise. Perhaps the Minister would like to meet him because he has some good ideas. Although in 1975 the Asian elephant in theory became a protected species, abuses continue to this day—he can talk ad infinitum about those.

The black rhinoceros—yes, the rhino was there—is in danger of being hunted to extinction in the wild, as an hon. Member mentioned. The organised poaching gangs associated with it promote corruption and organised crime. The rhino horn shipped to Asia from Africa is often sold for more than gold and platinum on the black market. The UN figures put the annual trade in Asia at £8 million. Lion numbers declined by 43% between 1993 and 2014. As of July 2017, the continental population of African lions was estimated to be 20,000. All these wonderful species are disappearing from our planet. Across their range, lions are in decline. They face threats from loss of habitat and prey, as well as illegal poaching and hunting. Lion bones, as well as those of leopards and other big cats, are used in some east Asian medicine—there is a myth that they have medicinal properties.

There have been success stories in the fight against the organised illegal wildlife trade. Lion hunting trophies are no longer permitted in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Somalia. It is not all doom and gloom. The Kenya Wildlife Service has been praised by the UN and the coalition Government because it introduced a £10 million grant to combat the trade in ivory and rhino horn. This debate was not meant to be about simply knocking the Government, but I do want to outline some areas where we could do better.

Some other good news is that, in 2017, a Chinese trader in Nanjing was arrested for what he believed to be tiger bone, but was in fact a lion bone. That illustrates how criminal gangs can use lion bones to skirt restrictions on tiger bones—there is slippage. There is a sense that the commercial farming of lions and tigers in South Africa could be fuelling rather than satiating demand for big cat bones in traditional medicines.

Clearly, aspects of the illegal wildlife trade exist in tandem with elements of legalised trade in wildlife parks. Again, the case of Cecil the lion was in a wildlife park. The Environmental Investigation Agency found that legal loopholes allowing the hunting of rhinos for live export and for trophies were being used to facilitate poaching. There is an argument in some circles for the promotion of farming certain animals to combat the illegal trade in their body parts, but some evidence shows that far from combatting the trade, it fuels demand. Again, there is that question of supply and demand.

On page 62 of the strategy, there is an eye-catching box with a border, which features discussion of the UK’s efforts to tackle the international wildlife trade. It includes references to the international meeting in October, which we are all looking forward to, sharing expertise with Vietnamese customs authorities, co-operation between Chinese and African forces and supporting follow-ups in Botswana. The message is that progress is being made, but it does not offer any concrete examples of policies or initiatives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr]

I will gratefully clarify that ivory is not now used in bagpipes. These are very old sets of bagpipes. I have a set that my father bought for me when I was 12. He paid an incredibly small amount of money for them, and they are now worth a lot more.

[Zac Goldsmith]

They won’t be for long.

[Stephen Kerr]

Point taken.

The hon. Lady made the interesting point, with which I agree, that the Government have not exactly sat on their hands but that, ultimately, we must do more—and more than virtue signalling. As the new Member of Parliament for Stirling, one of the first places I was invited to visit was one of the top tourist attractions in my constituency, the Blair Drummond safari park. Jamie Muir and his team gave me a behind-the-scenes experience that, frankly, I would never have had if I had not been elected. I had up-close encounters with elephants, rhinos, hippos and giraffes, and it was glorious to come into such close contact with those beautiful animals. Appreciating the glory of nature makes us appreciate our own humanity. It is appropriate to talk about nature on a day when Scotland received its first ever red weather alert. We stand in awe of the power of nature, as well as its beauty.

I promise that I will make only a short contribution, but I should explain that I am speaking in this debate because of my constituents. Like me, they feel very strongly about the need for us to proactively preserve the wonders of the world we live in and to not stand idly by and, frankly, see them ruthlessly destroyed for ill-gotten gains—that does not even begin to describe the depth of cruelty that goes into this trade.

The Government have a strong record on improving animal welfare, and it is important that we not only protect animals in the United Kingdom, but work to promote animal welfare and good environmental stewardship worldwide. That involves tackling the illegal wildlife trade and the corruption that it propagates and relies on.

It is shocking that the illegal wildlife trade stands alongside human trafficking and the trafficking in drugs and arms as one of the major cross-border crimes of our time, and that it draws in as much as £17 billion per year. That only underlines the need for global action and global co-operation.

It is a trade that brutalises animals. Those criminals routinely mistreat them, transport them from country to country in absolute squalor and kill them in massive numbers—that is great cruelty. The amount of ivory being caught in large shipments alone indicates that perhaps thousands of elephants are being killed each year for their ivory. African elephants are, of course, endangered, and the trade helps to drive them towards extinction by hindering global conservation efforts. Those criminals have no regard for the environment and will destroy entire ecosystems for short-term gains.

In addition to the cost to animals and to the environment, the illegal wildlife trade has a human cost. The trade thrives on and exacerbates corruption and undermines the rule of law. It is an entire industry—and a lucrative one, as we heard from the figures quoted by the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton—that operates outwith the authority of any Government or the law. Ultimately, it is an insidious, destabilising force that holds back the growth of developing countries and helps to keep millions of people in poverty worldwide.

[Zac Goldsmith]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and moving speech. It is known that Janjaweed, al-Shabab, Boko Haram, Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance army and other organisations all derive much of their income from the illegal wildlife trade, which makes it a dangerous and ugly business. Does he agree that one of things we do well, and have done well, as a country is provide real training for people in countries that want to tackle the trade to ensure that their anti-poaching and anti-illegal wildlife trade units are up to the task? We need to see much more of that as part of our “global Britain” plans in years to come.

[Stephen Kerr]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention and completely agree with him. That is one aspect of our leadership in this area that we should definitely advance. It is highly effective.

For humans, animals and the wider environment, it is imperative that we stamp out this illegal trade. The Government have rightly noted that it will require concerted international action and co-operation with nations across the world to bring the trade crashing down. It is in every country’s interest to end the illegal wildlife trade. Cracking down on it will promote sustainable growth and stability and help to preserve the future of the environment. I am grateful that the Government have set to work on addressing the issue and, as they have frequently expressed it in recent times, are devoid of any complacency in this area.

In 2014, the UK hosted an international meeting, as has been mentioned, where 40 countries agreed urgent co-ordinated action to eliminate the trade. Since then the Government have worked with authorities in China, Vietnam and across Africa, to name but a few, to help to curb the trade. International organisations play an important role too, and our support for the International Consortium for Combating Wildlife Crime, which brings together a range of institutions, makes a valuable contribution to the global fight against the trade. I welcome the publication of the new cross-Government anti-corruption strategy in December, which lays out the blueprint for further action, including against the illegal wildlife trade.

The strategy recognises the many ways in which we can work to curb the trade, including by promoting more robust law enforcement and stronger legal frameworks, encouraging alternative livelihoods and economic opportunities for people who might otherwise be tempted by the lucrative nature of the trade, and simply raising awareness. Likewise, it recognises the importance of international organisations to our future efforts. The UN, our Commonwealth friends and allies and the G20 will all be valuable partners in working to take down this trade and the corruption with which it is so intertwined.

At this point the strategy fills me with confidence that the Government will continue to strive to be a world leader in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade, but it has to be more than virtue signalling. There has to be real action. We already have a strong record—we certainly have a strong catalogue of speeches—in this area, and the strategy needs to develop. I believe we are ready to build on it as all parties in the House of Commons have an appetite for it.

I mentioned earlier that we are eighth out of 180 countries in the world for anti-corruption. I think we can do better in that area as well. Just as we should promote animal welfare around the world, we should also promote our culture of anti-corruption. As one of the least corrupt nations on earth—thankfully—it is our responsibility to help to build a world free of criminal enterprises, such as the illegal wildlife trade, where corruption touches as few lives as possible. With this strategy, I have confidence that the Government will proceed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It thank the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for introducing the debate.

The hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) issued a challenge to the House to hold wildlife in trust for those who come after us. We all have that challenge in our hearts. We must try to do it. I recently saw a video making the rounds on social media of a baby rhino in South Africa lying by the side of its dead mother, seemingly crying—it looked like that on the video. Such things are an unfortunate reality in the world we live in, but what caused that death should not be. The mother’s horns had been ripped from her body. Stats sometimes bring things home to us, because they show the enormous scale of what is happening. Rhino poaching has increased between 2007 and 2013 by 7,700% from 13 per year to 1,004 per year. That is incredible. The significance and magnitude of the figures cannot be stressed enough.

I was interested to hear about the hidden talents of the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) on the bagpipes. I would not have known. I am fond of the bagpipes, by the way. I love them, and they are very much part of life and tradition in Northern Ireland. Perhaps one day we will have the hon. Gentleman over to entertain us—12 July would be the day to come, but that is by the way.

The illegal wildlife trade is worth more than £15 billion a year. It is the fourth most lucrative illicit trade in the world after drugs, weapons and human trafficking. The very thought makes me ill. I have had a surprising number of emails from constituents about the debate. The more I have looked into the facts and figures, the more I have seen that, while we clearly have taken steps, we are not doing enough. We should be stepping out on the world stage, playing a greater role on behalf of those we could help, and bringing about the end of a vile trade.

I firmly concur with the aims and goals of the Worldwide Fund for Nature with respect to the end of illegal trade in animals: we must be clear, first, about adopting

“zero tolerance policy on corruption associated with the illegal wildlife trade, recognising with great concern that corruption is an important factor facilitating the criminal activities associated with the illegal wildlife trade.”

Secondly, we must urge countries where poaching, trafficking and buying take place to commit to supporting strategies that deepen understanding of corruption risks, and mitigation strategies to address the corruption that makes the illegal wildlife trade possible. We must review progress on existing high-level commitments such as those made in the London declaration of 2014 and the Kasane statement of 2015. We have made lots of statements and verbal commitments, but we need something that stops what is happening. We need to address the problem of corruption facilitating wildlife trafficking and related offences by reviewing or amending legislation as necessary, and criminalising the corruption that facilitates the trade. We should strengthen the legal framework and facilitate law enforcement to combat the illegal wildlife trade and assist with prosecution and the imposition of penalties that are an effective deterrent.

The illegal wildlife trade is made possible by corruption, and it fuels further corruption. Only if we tackle corruption can we eliminate the trade. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) in an intervention mentioned steps taken by China, which I hope make a difference. China sometimes says it will do something, but ivory trading seems to continue. Let us see how that works. Corruption can take place at every stage of the chain—poaching, trafficking, trading and laundering of the illegal proceeds of crime. It can be at the highest level, sanctioned for individual gain.

I had the pleasure of going on a half-day on safari in Kenya, with the armed forces parliamentary scheme. It was an opportunity for me to watch some of the creatures that God created. They must have been looking at me, as I had a white shirt on—of all the things to wear on safari. The sheer power of the lions, the beauty of the giraffes and the intelligence of the elephants is something that remains with me to this day. I thank my creator, God, who made wonders for our enjoyment—certainly not for our abuse or for the illegal animal trade. That is an abuse of God’s creation. Lions are being hunted for the thrill of the ride and as a trophy, and elephants for their ivory, with more than 100,000 killed by poachers between 2010 and 2012. Twenty thousand elephants are killed every year for the illegal ivory trade. The numbers suggest that, in the two months since the closure of the consultation at the end of December, approximately 8,300 elephants have been slaughtered, not for meat or to feed starving families, but to decorate people’s houses with ivory. That is not acceptable.

As hon. Members have said, we need to stifle the demand and end corruption and illegal killing. What help can the Minister give to countries that are trying to stop illegal poaching? The training and equipping of rangers is perhaps the sort of help needed on the ground.

[Zac Goldsmith]

A staggering quantity of illegal wildlife trade happens online, so one way to deal with demand would be to tackle that trade online. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in paying tribute and offering huge thanks to organisations such as the International Fund for Animal Welfare that have done so much to persuade big online retailers to weed illegal wildlife trade out of the way they do business? Taobao, Alibaba and eBay have massively changed their policies as a consequence of campaigning by groups such as IFAW. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has made a number of long interventions and there is one more speech to go.