Hunting Trophies (Import Prohibition) Bill

Mike Penning Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill aims to ban the importation of endangered species body parts into Great Britain—to be more precise, those listed on the convention on international trade in endangered species, or CITES, in annexes A and B, whether from species in the northern hemisphere, such as polar bears, or species in the southern hemisphere, such as elephants. The territorial extent of this Bill is Great Britain, so let us be clear: this legislation, obviously, does not tell other countries what to do.

Seven years ago, Cecil the lion was infamously shot dead by an American trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. Sadly, British trophy hunters are among the world’s most active killers of endangered species. In recent years, British trophy hunters have imported thousands of body parts as macabre souvenirs back into the UK. According to CITES, the most popular trophies brought back from Africa into the UK are those of elephants, hippos, leopards, zebras and lions. The African forest elephant has recently been declared critically endangered by the IUCN—the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the African savannah elephant is also declared endangered; their combined population is estimated to be approximately 400,000. At the beginning of the 19th century, there were as many as 20 million elephants in Africa. Trophy hunters now shoot so many elephants that, when we add the numbers that are poached, more elephants are killed each year than are born. Moreover, trophy hunters are shooting the biggest elephants with the biggest tusks. That is leading to artificial selection: only smaller-tusked elephants are surviving and passing on their genes. There are now many more small-tusked and tuskless adult elephants, which will find it harder to find water under dry riverbeds at times of drought, which are occurring more frequently.

The hippopotamus, which is second on the British trophy hunters’ list, is classed by the IUCN as vulnerable to extinction, as are zebras and leopards. Leopards are believed to have suffered a dramatic decline since the 1960s, with numbers falling from 700,000 to only 50,000 animals today, according to estimates. The situation for lions is even more alarming. The population in 1970 was estimated to be 200,000, but researchers now tell us there could be as few as 10,000 to 15,000—perhaps 20,000 in the wild at best—and there are official warnings that lions may become extinct in the wild by 2050.

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

This is such an important subject, and my hon .Friend is right to highlight at the start of his speech that this is about us in this country banning imports, rather than about telling other countries what they should do. Is he aware that because there is such a shortage of lions in the wild now that captive lions are being bred and released into enclosures for the trophy hunters to shoot them?

[Henry Smith]

My right hon. Friend raises an important and alarming point; the so-called “canned” shooting of lions and other majestic animals bred solely to be shot by trophy hunters in an enclosure is a particularly sickening aspect of this, which this country should have no part in whatsoever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I will not delay the House for long, as lots of colleagues want to get in and this Bill needs to be on the statute book, so we need to get it into Committee. As we have heard, this was a manifesto commitment of ours at the last election, as it was for the two main Opposition parties. I do not believe that any political party has opposed it.

For me, this is not just about speaking out on behalf of my constituents, many of whom have written to me; I had the honour and privilege to serve in Her Majesty’s armed forces in parts of the world where this used to take place—I am referring to Kenya. Kenya and that part of the world suffers enough from poaching, and we have heard about the number of species that are endangered, a lot of them because of poaching. This is greatly adding to that risk. I can remember being a young soldier and being lucky enough to go off at the weekend to the Ark, which is in the Aberdare park in Kenya, a most beautiful place to go. As a young soldier, there were lots of places I wanted to go; I never thought that I would want to go to a safari park, but I was truly amazed by what I saw. People wanted to go and have a piece of nature they could take home through photography, not with its head missing or after it had been shot.

The word “hunter” is used, but many of the animals are caged and then released; they are purely bred for someone to shoot them. That is so brave, isn’t it? I am a pretty good shot; I served many years in the armed forces and I shot at Bisley. Is it brave to have someone breed and release something, and then shoot it from just a few feet away? We have heard why some of those animals suffer for so long after they have been shot. Are the “hunters” all bad shots? Not necessarily—some animals are being shot in places where they will not die straight away, simply because people do not want to damage the head, which will be used as a trophy later on. The animal suffers and suffers.

With wildlife under so much pressure, and with the scourge of poaching, why can this House not do what we are entitled to do? I do not mean to tell another country what to do. We can absolutely praise other countries when they are doing the right thing. I should perhaps declare an interest here as the father of a marine biologist daughter; she will be watching me today ensuring I am talking about crocodiles and other things—saltwater crocodiles, in particular.

This is a moral issue for us. It is a moral issue for the countries that are allowing it, and the argument that this is bringing money into those countries is absolutely false. The WWF has been on the record about that; the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said earlier that the WWF did not support this Bill. That is fundamentally wrong. Anyone who has read the pamphlet that has been sent around today will see that there are definitive quotes in there. It is a lie to say it is creating a safe haven for the animals and protecting those species. They are being driven to the point of extinction in so many different ways.

My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who has done brilliantly well by bringing the Bill forward, alluded to elephants. Elephants have an amazing ability to remember things and hand them down from generation to generation, particularly when it comes to water. I was with a military unit in Kenya, and we were trying to find a suitable water source. We were on exercise, like the British military do, and a herd of elephants decided that they were going to come to the wadi, where we thought there was no water at all. They came right through the middle of the camp—it was quite interesting, to say the least. Because of the memory of the matriarch in that herd, they knew that there was water a few feet down. There had not been water in that wadi for years.

If we destroy, or allow to be destroyed, that innate ability to survive, by not passing this Bill we are just as bad as that man or woman who is shooting those animals. We are as bad as them. They are cowards, and we will be cowards if we do not pass this Bill today.

[Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I welcome the Bill and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) for bringing this important piece of legislation forward. I welcome the tabling of the Bill as it allows this place to debate the often difficult reality surrounding conservation.

I personally find hunting distasteful. I am appalled whenever I see, usually on social media, a hunter smiling gleefully next to their defenceless prey. I am at a loss, to be honest, as to why anyone would find enjoyment or even pleasure from shooting magnificent animals.

[Sir Mike Penning]

I apologise to the House, because I probably spoke for too long. These people are not hunters; we are being generous by calling them hunters, yet in this House we continue to call them that. Hunting an animal that cannot get away is not hunting.

[Nickie Aiken]

My right hon. Friend makes a salient point. Shooting magnificent animals such as rhinos, elephants and lions, and calling it “sport”, is abhorrent.

Naturally, I welcome the Bill and see it as an opportunity to bring about healthy debate on how we can best conserve endangered species while supporting the communities that are directly impacted. There is no question that we must do all we can to protect endangered species and improved biodiversity. I am proud of the work that this Government are doing to protect the environment. The nature recovery Green Paper that DEFRA delivered earlier this year, for example, sets out the Government’s ambitions to restore nature and halt the decline in species abundance by 2030.

There is little debate about the fact that one of the primary reasons why we have seen vast reductions in the numbers of animals in the wild—be they lions, elephants, zebras or even polar bears—is human action, including the destruction of natural habitats to make way for farmland, the pollution of vital water sources, actions leading to climate change and, of course, hunting. To reverse that trend permanently, we need to work to make wildlife and conservation worthwhile for all stakeholders.

Currently, there is no incentive for communities impacted by wildlife to accept the natural world that surrounds them. I stress that it is wrong to suggest that trophy hunting is a problem solely in Africa. We must be careful not to be seen as hypocritical, or even neo-colonial, when discussing our views on how foreign countries handle their wildlife. All around the world, there are examples of the environment and wildlife being sacrificed—be it the deforestation of the Amazon, the exploitation of waterways in Europe, or even the mass removal of hedgerows in the United Kingdom in the decades after world war two, which I am glad to see is being slowly reversed by this Government—because Governments have not provided incentives for local people to work with nature.

We must therefore encouragement the Government, who are fortunate enough to possess incredible swathes of nature, to work with and demonstrate to local communities that living near majestic wild animals need not adversely impact on their ability provide for their families. If that is done correctly, communities that embrace their animal neighbours can flourish without compromising nature.

I understand that this is an incredibly emotional subject. As I said earlier, I abhor the thought of hunting for trophies. It is equally important that we take a pragmatic and evidence-led approach to the issue, driven by the data, experience and knowledge of those on the ground. The leading cause of the population decline in a range of animals across the world is not the regulated hunting that we are discussing, but illegal hunting, which is commonly referred to as “poaching”.

I was interested to learn from Save the Rhino International that between 2012 and 2017, an average of 83 white rhinos and 3 black rhinos were hunted each year. In the same period, an average of nearly 1,100 rhinos were poached each year. That means that, during that period, only 7% of rhinos were killed by legal hunters—I acknowledge the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) on the term “legal hunters”—while the other 93% were cruelly killed by poachers for their own gain, without care for the conservation and protection of the area.