Sustainable Development Goals

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. Unfortunately, you have missed most of the debate. It has been incredibly interesting, and I am delighted to follow so many hon. Members, from all sides of the House, who have spoken very eloquently about the sustainable development goals. They have not been in existence for that long, but we are making some progress.

I am particularly interested to follow the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who said, “There are no jobs on a dead planet”, and that the unions understand that. That is actually something I will touch on in my speech. We know that we need better health and education and a reduction in the disaffection of young people with politics, particularly, and with the world. We also know that we need more peace and fewer conflicts in the world. Many of those things affect countries in Africa.

I want to concentrate on jobs, which relates to goal 8. That goal is for

“sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”.

I will focus my remarks on African countries. Without jobs and economic growth, we cannot have any of the other things in the sustainable development goals. We cannot have better health or better education unless somebody pays for it. Jobs and livelihoods are incredibly important. They help families to educate their children and to have better health.

I have been privileged to travel to many African countries, and they are all delightful. They have very varied landscapes and types of countryside out there. The only thing they have that I hate is mosquitoes and malaria; that is the only downside I can see to African countries. It is a unique continent, but without tourism, which is what I want to talk about, most of its countries would have very few jobs for people to earn a living and to help their children and grandchildren. We do not want to continue giving handouts. People do not want handouts; they want a proper job, so that they can contribute to society, pay their taxes and help others by doing so. They want a livelihood that engages them and that they can enjoy.

Tourism is one such livelihood. It encompasses all sorts of jobs, from rangers out in the field to people working in the hospitality industry. Without tourism, Africa would struggle to survive. It is something many people in this country take advantage of; many of us have been on holiday to African countries and recognise that it is a most beautiful continent, with a fantastic climate. As I say, the only downside is malaria.

There is a tremendous diversity in African countries that tourism can take advantage of, but that diversity is at threat. If that threat is not tackled by the world, diversity will decline, if not disappear, in many countries. Elephants, rhinos, gorillas, wild dogs and even lions, to name just a few, are at risk of extinction from poachers, who earn so much by killing those majestic and beautiful animals.

The other problem that animals face, aside from the poachers, is their shrinking natural habitat, which I believe this country can help to protect. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) about the planting in Nepal that helps with climate change. That can also help to provide a habitat for some of these wonderful animals. DFID, alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, needs to push our Government, through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to ban the trading of ivory worldwide.

Parts of elephant families are being killed, which is tragic. Since the Conservative party came into power, in the coalition Government before and now on our own, 120,000 elephants have been killed in Africa alone, reducing the population to just over 300,000. The problem is that the speed at which they are being killed is escalating, so my grandchildren and great-grandchildren may never see elephants.

[Mary Creagh]

The hon. Lady is making an interesting and valuable point. Does she agree that we need to do a lot more to ban the domestic trade in ivory in this country and the loophole that allows ivory allegedly produced before 1948 to be freely sold and traded? People can go to any antique shop down on the King’s Road and pick up some ivory. Until we take the cachet and the glamour out of ivory, including antique ivory, in our own country, we cannot lecture people around the world on this, because they can come back and say, “Well, I can get this on the King’s Road.”

[Pauline Latham]

There is a market and people are making money from it; the hon. Lady is right. I am campaigning to stop the trade in ivory not only worldwide but here, because we are nowhere near there yet, and we should be. We should be leading the world in blocking the ivory trade, and I know the Minister is interested in this issue.

Elephants live in large herds. They are very social animals. When an elephant is killed, the others grieve. We have seen it on David Attenborough’s programmes. If several animals in a herd are killed, poachers will generally go for the largest, because they have the biggest tusks, which poachers make so much money from. That means elephant families are losing role models for the younger elephants to follow.

We talk about dysfunctional families in this country; that is what we are seeing with wild elephants in Africa. Those elephants are losing the role models and the family structure that we have lost quite badly here. The non-mature males have no role models to follow, so they become delinquent and dangerous to the population. I know of one wildlife photographer who was trampled and savaged—he survived, but only just—by an elephant that was not behaving naturally. We are not only decimating these beautiful animals but changing the structure of their lives.

[Dr Cameron]

Does the hon. Lady agree that alongside ivory trading, trophy hunting is an issue that we should be addressing? Cecil the lion was killed just a year ago. That problem is widespread and is contributing to the loss of a great many species over time.

[Pauline Latham]

I agree, but I do not think it is as bad as poaching. People make so much money from ivory poaching that they can afford to hire helicopters to fly in a poacher who shoots an elephant or rhino, saws the tusks off with a chainsaw, gets them into the helicopter and flies off before any ranger can get near them. They are very efficient, and the trade is worth millions, but they are not the people who should be targeted. We should target the people who are commissioning this and buying the tusks. I agree with the hon. Lady that there are multiple problems.

Rhinos now need 24/7 security. I was in Kenya in the summer, and the two rhinos there had two guards walking around with them 24/7. That is changing the rhinos’ nature, because they are becoming too habituated to humans and know them too well. The habitat of gorillas is constantly reducing and they are losing the ancient rainforests that they need. Without those habitats, we lose potential tourism for many countries. Wild dogs are down to an absolute minimum. The habitats need protection, and the animals need protection.

The ivory trade needs to be stopped, without further ado. We should not consult on it next year; we should stop it next year. We should have stopped it before. We are not leading the world in this. We now face the prospect of destroying jobs and possibilities for people in Africa, because without those livelihoods, which I believe we can and should facilitate, people will be left behind. We will fail on the sustainable development goals. We will not have better education or health, and those people will genuinely be left behind. I urge the Minister to push the Foreign Office and DEFRA to stop the ivory trade, and stop it now.