Ivory Bill (First sitting)

Trudy Harrison Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Luke Pollard]

Q If the ivory ban was extended to include ivory in the first sense, rather than just elephant ivory, would that trigger other countries to follow suit and create ivory bans, or to extend them to include walrus, sperm whale, narwhal and other species? They would effectively be cutting and pasting the legislation that the UK will pass, extending the protections from day one in other countries.

Charlie Mayhew: Potentially. It must have an influence when other countries see what we have done. Hopefully it would also influence our European colleagues, which is the next big prize for us. We want to see a similarly strong ban put in place across Europe.

Alexander Rhodes: My short answer to your first and second questions is yes, I think so. The second point I wanted to make about the impact of the London conference is just to re-emphasise the importance of closing the domestic market here in the UK for elephant ivory. The elephant protection initiative, which Will mentioned, was launched by five African leaders at the first London conference. We fostered and supported that initiative. The Government then supported the birth of that African-led initiative with funding through the challenge fund.

The elephant protection initiative is in two parts. The first part is to deal with the product, close domestic markets and put ivory stockpiles that have accumulated over time beyond economic use. The second part is then to deal with the animal. The proposal to deal with the animal is to implement the African elephant action plan. That is a plan agreed between all African states that have elephants. It addresses all the issues to do with the management of elephants alongside people. It deals with law enforcement and protected areas on one side, and human-elephant conflict and sustainable livelihoods on the other.

One of the great things that has happened since the first conference, and as we begin to look to the second conference, is the building of this international consensus to close domestic elephant ivory markets, as well as the collapse in ivory prices that we have seen alongside that. What that does in practice is relieve the pressure slightly on countries that have elephants and are trying to manage those elephants. It allows them then to focus more on some of the other issues, as well as dealing with illegal poaching and the interference of criminal gangs. It also allows them to focus on problem management, sustainable livelihoods and so on. Those things are obviously something that we would all come in behind on.

As we look to this next conference in October, the elephant protection initiative will form part of it. It is now 18 African countries strong, having started with five at the first London conference and having been supported by the British Government the whole way through. The focus at the conference will not only be on celebrating the push to close domestic markets, but very much on raising funding and applying funding under common national plans under the African elephant action plan. That is development funding as much as anything. Focusing on that as much as on what we were talking about earlier with elephant ivory more broadly will be critical in demonstrating the success of closing domestic markets in terms of the survival of the species.

[Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)]

Q We heard earlier that the price of elephant ivory had reduced from $2,200 to $450 a kilo. What has the impact been on ivory from other species? Do we know about that?

Charlie Mayhew: I do not have that information, but I anticipate that that figure would be across most ivory, and you would see something similar reflected.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q How difficult is to differentiate between ivory from an elephant and ivory from another species?

Charlie Mayhew: To the lay person, it is very difficult. If you walk into a market in Portobello Road or in Hong Kong, it is virtually impossible to tell the difference. It is certainly impossible to tell the age of it, as Will demonstrated with the piece he had.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q Could it be a risk that ivory from other species is passed off as something not from an elephant?

Charlie Mayhew: Absolutely. That happens regularly. In fact, you only have to go to online markets to see people trying to pass off ivory described as “ivory-coloured bone” to get around the legislation. That is one of our big concerns, with regard to the Bill hopefully having a real impact in closing down online sales. That really needs to be looked at.

[Trudy Harrison]

Q As the Bill stands, do you feel that it will contribute significantly towards that?

Charlie Mayhew: We have concerns about whether it will have the teeth to stop the online markets. That possibly needs to be looked at.

[David Rutley]

Q We asked a question earlier to check that witnesses felt that they have been involved in the consultation and engaged in the process. The other witnesses felt that they have been, but it is very important to hear that you have as well. I hope that is the case. We want to thank you for all your contributions to the process. We want to ensure that your voice has been heard, or that you at least feel that it has.

The other point I raised earlier, which has not been so fully examined with this panel, was displacement, and what more you think we could do to stop it as the focus on ivory moves to the far east—whether the October conference will help, or whether anything else could be done.

Charlie Mayhew: First, I echo the comments of the previous representative of the NGOs. I think that DEFRA and the British Government have been extremely good at consulting with us all. We certainly feel that we have been very involved—as involved as we could be expected to be. That has been fantastic.

The 2014 conference saw the launch of the British Government’s illegal wildlife trade challenge fund. Tusk has been a beneficiary and has managed two very major grants under that programme that have had a significant impact on the ground. I urge the Government to continue to support that funding—if possible, to expand that funding. Only yesterday I had a report of a poaching syndicate that had been arrested as a result of some of the training that we had implemented under that challenge fund grant. We have also been working with the Ministry of Defence on the deployment of soldiers out in Malawi, which has been hugely successful and very welcomed by that Government.

The British Government have a significant role to play in using our expertise in various areas to help those countries—not only in Africa but, as was said earlier, in helping to clamp down on the trade in the far east. We should continue to provide as much support and funding as we can to eradicate this illegal trade, not least because it is known that the trade has been exploited not only by criminal syndicates but by armed militias, rebels and terrorists. This goes much further than just being a criminal activity; it really impacts on the security of many of these countries.

Alexander Rhodes: I would like to add my thanks to the Government, and to DEFRA staff in particular. The consultation has been run extremely carefully and we certainly feel that we have been well consulted. It seems that everybody has had an opportunity to put things in, as I think the public response demonstrates. The electronic means by which people could engage were heavily used by the public, in order to be involved in the consultation, so thank you very much for that. I endorse what Charlie said.