Anti-Corruption Strategy: Illegal Wildlife Trade

Debate between Nigel Mills and Rupa Huq

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Nigel Mills]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. Does she at least recognise that the strategy, perhaps as a surprise to many, made such a prominent link between corruption and illegal wildlife sales, which reinforces the need to build capacity in countries around the world so that people cannot pay a bribe to find out where an animal is, get the body out of the country or move money around, which is an important part of tackling the problem?

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman, my trusty co-chair, is absolutely right. There needs to be expertise to enforce all those things—having policies is not enough. We hear about bent policemen. I do not know whether other Members were there, but just now the International Fund for Animal Welfare was in the building with a photo opportunity about ivory. The policy adviser, David, told me about a recent case in which eight policemen were heavily implicated. The hon. Gentleman is right that we need the crime-fighting mechanics as well as policies.

The charity was demonstrating a fingerprinting kit, because ivory is one of the few things that fingerprints do not leave any trace on. That cutting-edge technology can now be used 28 days after the prints were left. This is a cross-border trade where an animal is killed in one place, and the parts are exported and moved between places, but the technology will allow a month for prints to be taken. I am very encouraged by the IFAW’s work, but we need to encourage more counties to take up that fingerprinting technology and introduce it in other police forces—it was developed by University College London and the standard is used by our police.

The first question on my list for the Minister is easy and I have already said it: will she meet with Duncan McNair, the CEO of STAE, to discuss its work and how it can have an input into Government policy? He has some very good ideas. I have also mentioned last autumn’s ivory ban. We have not seen the results yet, and there are suspicions that they could be held back for a wonderful photo opportunity in October at the international conference here in London. I hope that she will tell me that is not case and we will see the consultation results sooner. Could she tell us when the consultation results will be released?

The strategy mentions

“tangible outcomes for implementation and delivery”

by October, but delivery of what? In fact, will the ivory ban be in place by then? That would be a great opportunity for that announcement, although it would be even better if the ban has long been in place.

Of the exemptions announced by the Government to a total ivory ban, I completely accept, as does the Musicians’ Union, the exemption for musical instruments —violins and cellos. I am not going to burst into Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s “Ebony and Ivory” at this point.