Animals in Peril

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, in my first time in doing so. I have to say that you look very good in that Chair.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing this debate. He has a strong track record in supporting animals and their welfare, and he is absolutely right to raise this important issue. The protection of endangered species around the world is a key priority for this Government, as we reaffirmed in our manifesto earlier this year. Both domestically and internationally, a strong economy needs a healthy environment. That requires healthy ecosystems, global biodiversity and the conservation of species. An estimated 40% of world trade is based on natural resources, but pressures on the global environment are increasing. Major ecosystems, and the species to which they are home, support the livelihoods of billions of people, but they are under threat. In short, protecting animals is as vital for us as it is for them.

We are taking action, bilaterally and through international agreements, to protect wildlife populations, whether they are threatened by poaching, habit loss or human-animal conflict. The United Kingdom is recognised as a global leader on environmental issues, whether by raising the illegal wildlife trade up the international agenda or through our commitment to tackling climate change, deforestation and ocean acidification.

We recognise the ongoing threat to elephants throughout much of Africa, so this month we announced our plans to ban the trade in ivory in the UK. We had already effectively limited trade in modern worked ivory and in all raw ivory. My hon. Friend the Member for Romford says it is “too little, too late”. I am concerned that he is not being generous enough, given that we already had the toughest laws and licensing regime in the European Union. I assure him that, if they go ahead as planned, the proposals will be the toughest in the world, except for those in India. I assure him that we are taking forward this important agenda.

The ban will build on the range of activities that we already undertake throughout Africa, to demonstrate further our global leadership in efforts to protect elephants and consign the ivory trade to history. We welcome the steps taken by other countries, particularly the USA and China, which has the largest market demand for ivory, to restrict their ivory markets. It is only through such international commitment and global co-operation that we will end this pernicious, blood-thirsty trade.

Nevertheless, I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise that the greater threat to animals in peril is habitat decline, whether because of direct human intervention or climate change. Deforestation not only destroys critical habitats for biodiversity but causes 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As Members will see later this month in “Blue Planet II”, significant impacts on the polar ice caps are threatening wildlife directly, while ocean acidification threatens the food web itself.

Forests support 90% of the world's biodiversity, regulate water quality and mitigate climate change by absorbing and storing carbon. More than 1.6 billion people depend on forests for food, medicine and livelihoods. The UK is determined to eliminate deforestation in developing countries and is investing £5.8 billion through our international climate fund between 2016 and 2021, with additional focus on mitigation and adaptation. My Department is investing around £210 million to protect and restore more than 500,000 hectares of the world’s most biodiverse forests and create sustainable livelihoods for the 500,000 people who rely on their local ecosystems. These forests, from the mighty Amazon to mangroves in Madagascar, are also home to thousands of species of animals, birds, fish and insects, many of which are critically endangered.

We are aware that illegal logging can cause environmental and biodiversity damage, as well as having a disastrous effect on the people who live in and rely on forests. The UK has long been at the forefront of global action against illegal logging. As a result of the EU forest law enforcement, governance and trade plan, which the UK was instrumental in establishing, all timber exports from Indonesia are now certified as legal, compared with only 20% meeting that standard in 2005.

This year, we are marking the 25-year anniversary of the world-renowned Darwin initiative, which provides grants to projects in developing countries for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. Since 1992, we have invested £140 million in 1,055 Darwin projects in 159 countries. The projects tackle issues that put animals in peril, from the loss of and damage to habitats caused by human activity, to the reduction of the use of poisonous pesticides. Recent projects have helped to conserve iconic species such as gorillas—I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who is right to praise the work of the Aspinall Foundation—as well as snow leopards and elephants.

The Darwin initiative is also critical to the protection of some lesser known animals, including the Madagascan pochard, possibly the rarest bird in the world, which was saved from extinction, and the St Helena wirebird, whose conservation status has been downgraded from critically endangered to vulnerable. Darwin projects have also discovered new species—for example, a new amphibian in Colombia and Madagascar and a new land-snail in Thailand—and led to the re-discovery of a rare crane fly on St Helena that was thought to be extinct for decades. That shows that we must continue to help conserve and protect habitats, creating places where animal populations not only survive, but thrive.

The Darwin Plus fund bolsters our commitments by protecting the unique diversity of our overseas territories, which are home to 85% of the UK’s critically endangered species. Invasive non-native species are a significant problem on many of the overseas territories as they can attack native species. That is why we are contributing nearly £2 million to eradicate mice from Gough Island, where they decimate local populations of seabird chicks.

We also aim to protect more than 4 million sq km of ocean around the overseas territories, making them safe havens for marine creatures. We will create a marine protected area around Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island in the South Atlantic, a UNESCO world heritage site that is home to northern rockhopper penguins and the Tristan albatross. Pitcairn’s new marine protected area permanently closes around 840,000 sq km to commercial fishing, thereby protecting species of fish found nowhere else on earth.

We also play a leading role in promoting the protection of whales and dolphins. We work tirelessly within the International Whaling Commission to improve the conservation and welfare of these animals. Earlier this year, the UK made a voluntary donation of £200,000 to tackle critical threats to welfare such as bycatch in fisheries. We are also a very strong voice against the commercial and scientific whaling undertaken by Norway, Iceland, and Japan. We regularly apply diplomatic pressure to those countries to cease their activities, as I did just this week when I was at the G7.

The illegal wildlife trade is a serious criminal global industry. My hon. Friend will be aware that a lot of focus is on majestic species such as elephants, rhinos and lions, but the scale of illegal trade across all species is increasing. Indeed, pangolins are the most trafficked mammal. Unfortunately, their defence mechanism is to roll into a ball, which makes them even easier to poach and traffic. He should also be aware that flora is even more trafficked than fauna, including many plants, and rosewood has the greatest value of all. Early this year, a focused operation by Interpol across 43 countries seized birds, reptiles, seahorses and many other endangered species. I can assure him that the criminal enterprise of this scale is, unfortunately, only possible due to shocking levels of corruption. Therefore, in addition to legislative action, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is investing £26 million—that was announced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House when she was Environment Secretary—which is double our previous investment. We are doing that to try to reduce demand, to strengthen law enforcement and to develop sustainable livelihoods for communities that live alongside such animals in peril.

There is also considerable work being done to develop sustainable wildlife tourism economies. Next October, the UK will host the fourth international conference on tackling illegal wildlife trade. We are committed to working with our international partners around the world to tackle the growing problem of illegal wildlife trade. Indeed, it is working with other nations to reduce demand and disrupt this crime that will truly make the difference. For this reason, the UK and China are jointly developing a law enforcement training project in southern Africa, fulfilling the commitment that we made at the 2017 illegal wildlife trade conference in Hanoi.

The UK is an active participant in the Convention on International Trade in International Species. At the last conference in which I participated, the UK was involved with up-listing a number of species from appendix II to appendix I under the convention, which means that they are now afforded enhanced protection from such trade. These species include one of the species to which my hon. Friend referred—the African grey parrot—as well as the Barbary macaque, the turquoise dwarf gecko and the Chinese crocodile lizard. The 12th conference of the Convention on Migratory Species is meeting later in October and we will continue to work to ensure that more species are afforded greater protection.

My hon. Friend was absolutely right to refer to the domestic species, but he will recognise that our focus is on pressures on habitat, which will continue to pose challenges, whether that be domestically or abroad. Our work to date shows that it is possible, with effort and commitment, to improve the chances of some of our most endangered species. It is not something that the UK can do alone. Global action is needed and global responsibility is required, but I can assure him and the House that the UK will play its part.

Question put and agreed to.