Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to prevent illegal trade in ivory products.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The UK has played a leading role in galvanising international action to combat the illegal wildlife trade, including the illegal trade in ivory. We hosted the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade in February 2014 and actively supported the Government of Botswana in its hosting of a follow-up Conference in Kasane in March 2015. The UK has also supported the Elephant Protection Initiative, of which nine African elephant range states are now members and which is designed to help them to secure and maintain healthy elephant populations.
The UK is committed to maintaining the current global ban on any new international trade in ivory, established under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). In addition, the UK does not permit trade in raw ivory tusks of any age and we are pressing for this approach to be taken across the whole of the European Union.
We have committed £13 million to support projects around the world to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. These projects seek to reduce demand, strengthen law enforcement and develop sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by illegal wildlife trade, principally through Defra’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund. A second round of the Challenge Fund was launched on 5 August.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to encourage international cooperation on the enforcement of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
Answered by George Eustice
The UK has taken a lead in establishing a compliance mechanism, and is attending the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture’s sixth Governing Body in October 2015 which will consider further work to support implementation of, and compliance with, the Plant Treaty. This includes the development of online reporting tools. The UK is prepared to nominate an expert for the Plant Treaty’s Compliance Committee for the 2016-19 term.
The UK’s Darwin initiative is aimed at funding projects to help developing countries implement biodiversity conventions. Supporting the implementation of the Plant Treaty by developing countries is identified as a priority area for Darwin funding and we are now funding such projects, including one on the “Mutually supportive implementation of the Nagoya Protocol and Plant Treaty”.
Asked by: Stephen Phillips (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the threat to the UK's environment from invasive alien plant species.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The Non-Native Species Framework Strategy for Great Britain sets out our mechanism for addressing non-native species, including plants. The strategy includes a comprehensive risk assessment mechanism to assess the potential negative impacts of non-native species, including threats to the environment. To date 126 risk assessments have been completed or are in progress. Of these, 58 are plant species.