Trophy Hunting

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Benyon

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith]

My right hon. Friend is right that there is no conservation value in that whatever. Colleagues will raise that issue in more detail, but I will touch on it shortly.

My fear is that the existence of some small-scale examples of better practice is driving our policy generally on trophy hunting, without recourse to the wider evidence, which suggests that the real story of trophy hunting is a lot less rosy than those advocates would have us believe. Indeed, on almost every level there is reason to doubt the arguments in favour of trophy hunting.

When it comes to the claim that sustainable hunting supports local people, a report prepared for—not written by—the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which is the global authority on nature, said that hunting

“serves individual interests, but not those of conservation, governments or local communities.”

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation, around 97% of hunting revenues stay within the hunting industry. Incidentally, just 0.03% of African GDP derives from hunting, when the prospects for expanding tourism are clearly far greater, and likely far more profitable for local communities. Another report written for the IUCN noted that 40% of the big game hunting zones in Zambia, and 72% in Tanzania, are now classified as depleted because the big game has simply been hunted out of those areas.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the greatest threats to some of those species is the growth of populations in continents such as Africa? Will he applaud work done by non-governmental organisations, such as one I have seen for myself at Amboseli, where IFAW has put people in place to co-ordinate the interface between wildlife and human beings, which has caused threats particularly to species such as lions? It is really important that that is where resources go.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I could not agree more strongly. The best conservation projects harness the power of people at the grassroots—people who then directly benefit from an emerging economy in conservation. There are so many examples—not enough to buck the trends that I mentioned at the beginning, but some really inspiring ones that I could spend hours relaying. However, I will not do that, as I am going to allow another intervention.

Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Benyon

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend on that. Indeed, I am going to take this opportunity to quote from what was said in response to the conviction by the National Police Chiefs Council lead on FGM, Commander Ivan Balhatchet:

“Female genital mutilation is a barbaric and violent crime—a violation of human rights—often with lifelong consequences, committed by the people children should be able to trust the most.”

He continued:

“Today’s sentencing will act as a deterrent and a warning that our society will not accept this child abuse, but prosecutions alone will not solve this problem.”

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend’s work on the all-party group and with campaigners reveal a reluctance on this among groups of people to whom children are presented, for whatever reason? We are all familiar in our constituencies with what happens when a child is discovered to have bruising or possible signs of maltreatment. Following cases such as that of Victoria Climbié, there is almost a lurch in the other direction to immediately assume that there is a child abuse problem, but perhaps that has not happened enough in respect of FGM. Is he confident that legislation such as this is going to make it increasingly easy for those cases to be presented as child abuse?

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I cannot give him a scientific answer, but I can tell him that the evidence the all-party group received from those people who have been through FGM absolutely concurs with what he has just said: there are parts of the establishment and social services, and people within the education system, who are very nervous indeed about pointing the finger on FGM. There is a concern about trampling on cultural sensitivities. The view of the people we talked to, like my view and, I suspect, that of many in the House today, is that those sensitivities should be pushed to one side. This is a very direct form of child abuse; child abuse is child abuse, and it is our responsibility as adults and the authorities to stamp it out at every opportunity. That message has been unambiguous, in all the evidence we have taken from those people who have been through FGM.

Blue Belt Programme: South Sandwich Islands

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Benyon

Wednesday 12th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government’s blue belt programme and the South Sandwich islands.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. Oceans cover about 71% of the earth’s surface, and around 90% of the earth’s biosphere. They contain about a quarter of a million different known species—and likely vastly more, given that so little of our oceans has been properly explored or understood. Today, I will speak about the tragedy of what is happening to our oceans and about what we need to do to protect them.

There was a time when our oceans were absolutely brimming with life. In 1497, the explorer John Cabot complained that his ship’s progress had been hampered by the sheer volume of cod off the coast of Newfoundland. He wrote a message to his sponsor, King Henry VII, in which he said that his men

“took so many fish that this kingdom will no longer have need of Iceland, from which country there is an immense trade in the fish”.

As we now know, industrial fishing quickly put an end to that. In 1968, the registered catch was 800,000 tonnes; by 1994, the catch was just 1,700 tonnes. In Victorian England, one could have seen large pods of orcas and blue whales off the coast of Cornwall. Professor Callum Roberts has reminded us that in 1836, a shoal of sardines extended, in a single compact body, from Fowey to Land’s End—a distance of around 100 miles. He notes that today, people pay serious money to travel thousands of miles to witness such scenes.

Today, we face an unprecedented loss of species in our oceans, comparable to the mass extinctions of past millennia. A year ago, the Zoological Society of London and the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a report stating that there is only half the amount of wildlife in the sea today as there was in 1970, just a few years before I was born. Between 70% and 80% of the world’s marine fish stocks have either been fully exploited, overexploited, depleted or are recovering from depletion. Of the 17 largest fisheries in the world, 15 are now so heavily depleted that future catches cannot be guaranteed.

A scientific paper published in Nature reports that we have lost 90% of the world’s big predatory fish, such as tunas and sharks. Only 5% of coral reefs are considered pristine. Despite serving as breeding grounds for 85% of commercial fish, a third of the world’s mangroves have been destroyed since 1990. That annihilation is happening across the world, and is not only an unforgivable biodiversity tragedy, but a human tragedy.

About 200 million people depend directly on the fishing industry for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, fish is the primary source of protein. If the fishing industry collapses, the effects will be disastrous, especially for the world’s poorest people. One has only to look at what happened in Somalia a couple of decades ago: years of overfishing—mostly by vast foreign fleets—decimated the coastal economy when fish stocks ran out. Legal fishing gave way to piracy, and millions were plunged into poverty, with criminality taking over.

There are numerous causes of this loss and numerous things that we need to do to put things right, but the biggest—and the focus of the debate—is simply protection. Marine protected areas represent a broad spectrum, with everything from absolute no-take zones to areas open only to sustainable fishing. We know that they work because we can literally measure the results of protection.

When commercial fishing in the Atlantic ocean and North sea had to be stopped during world war two, there was an immediate spike in fish populations. In New Zealand’s Leigh marine reserve, common predatory fish are now six times more abundant in the reserve than outside, while in its Tāwharanui marine reserve, there are 60% more species in the reserve than out. Spain has suffered massively from overfishing, but catches close to the Tabarca marine reserve were 85% higher than elsewhere after just six years of protection. The list goes on, all around the world.

There is a level of agreement about the scale of the problem, but the response—an international commitment to protect 10% of the world’s oceans by 2020—is far below what is needed. To make matters much worse, we are nowhere near achieving that. The British Government get it: we have committed to pushing for the protection of 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030, and despite being a relatively small nation we are in a good position to take the lead. We are, after all, custodians of the fifth largest marine estate in the world, thanks to our extensive overseas territories, which contain, incidentally, over 94% of the UK’s unique biodiversity. They are scattered across the world and home to countless rare and threatened species.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

In the context of our overseas territories, Blue Belt is an incredibly ambitious policy. Does my hon. Friend agree that we will be judged on its success only in terms of how we support different marine protections around different archipelagos and islands? Ascension Island is a key one: people are waiting to see whether the Government are willing to pledge the means to ensure that the marine protection area there is a success, so that we can have confidence in what we are doing globally.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for his intervention, and I agree with him 100%. I put on the record my thanks to him and my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who led the campaign in Parliament and can take a lot of credit for the Government’s current position.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park and Lord Benyon

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith]

I shall move on, because I will otherwise fail to address the key issues that I wish to address. Before I first gave way, I was talking about the discussions between Government Members, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State’s advisers and the Greener UK representatives. Those discussions were meaningful—in some cases they lasted a long time—and they led to a broad agreement on a solution. I am delighted to say that that is the solution the Secretary of State has presented in the past few days.

The Committee has heard most of the details already, but my right hon. Friend has committed not only to creating a strong, independent body with teeth that can hold the Government and their successor Governments to account on the environment, but a policy statement—the policy statement we have already been debating—that will set out and define those key environmental principles.

There is a hierarchy of national policy statements. They are not all the same, and some have sharper teeth than others. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury knows more about that than I do, and I invite him to intervene.

[Richard Benyon]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. The marine policy statement that came as part of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009—the right hon. Member for Leeds Central will feel extremely proprietorial about this—is a good example of how Government can set policy, and of the tortuous discussions about how Government can adhere to that policy. It is a good model to take forward as part of this policy statement.

[Zac Goldsmith]

My right hon. Friend has a closer experience of this issue than I do.

The solution presented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reflects a consensus reached between parliamentary colleagues and between his Department and the main representatives of Greener UK, who by and large have publicly welcomed the policy. I invite Members to look through the Twitter accounts of some of this country’s leading environmental campaigners and lawyers to see that, generally speaking, there is a high level of enthusiasm for the Secretary of State’s promises.

I agree very strongly with the sentiments behind many of the amendments that have been tabled, and to which hon. Members have already spoken. I am delighted the amendments were tabled, because they have had the effect of sharpening and focusing minds. I found them useful in my discussions with the Secretary of State, but I hope it will at least be acknowledged, particularly by Opposition Members, as it has been by the key pressure groups, that the amendments have already done their job.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is not in his place at the moment but, if he is listening, I put on record my very sincere thanks to him for stepping up and giving nature the voice that it so badly needs.