Birds of Prey: Conservation

(asked on 14th April 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime's report, entitled Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit Report: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published in August 2021, which states that raptors are being persecuted by organised crime groups, if the Government will (a) recognise raptor persecution as serious and organised crime and (b) allocate additional resources to help tackle raptor persecution.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 27th April 2022

We welcome this report and the fact that it recognises the UK's global leadership in fighting wildlife and forestry crime. We invited the UN to undertake this analysis and we are proud to be the first G7 country to request this assessment. While raptor persecution is not linked to organised crime groups, this government takes it very seriously and Defra has this year more than doubled its funding of the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) from £165,000 per year to over £1.2 million over the next three years to target wildlife crime priorities including the illegal killing of birds of prey.

The report does, however, link the illegal trade of raptors to organised crime. This government recognises illegal wildlife trade (IWT) as a serious crime, which is sometimes carried out by organised criminal groups, and advocates that approach worldwide. From August 2021 the Home Office has provided additional funding for the NWCU to tackle money laundering related to IWT, aligning directly to G7 commitments to intensify the combating of illicit finance from IWT. This is intended to be a three-year project.

We will carefully consider all of the UN report's recommendations to help us build on the positive progress we have made in tackling wildlife crime. The UK is already committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities, the economy and protect global security. We are investing over £46m between 2014 and 2022 to counter international illegal trade by reducing demand, strengthening enforcement, ensuring effective legal frameworks and developing sustainable livelihoods.

Reticulating Splines