Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has made to remove the avenues of acacia trees which have been planted on his Department's land.

The Sovereign Base Areas Administration (SBAA) is not able to accurately asses the number of songbirds killed illegally in the autumn migration periods.

Birdlife Cyprus undertakes assessments of bird trapping across the whole of Cyprus. The SBAA does not have confidence with unverified assessments over bird losses which are based on arbitrary data collected from a very short period.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mark Francois) met with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Chief Executive on 6 March 2015 and informed him that the SBAA and Birdlife have agreed to work together on data collection methods to be used in analysis of the 2015 autumn season.

He also explained to him that during the autumn 2014 migration season, approximately ten percent of acacia trees in the range at CapePyla in the Eastern Sovereign Base Area were cut down. This equates to approximately 17 acres of land.

The RSPB is aware that the Sovereign Base Areas Administration is now reviewing options to remove more acacia in 2015 at Cape Pyla, and the area is proposed as one of the sites for designation as a Special Area of Conservation this year. This is subject to consultation and, if designation is endorsed, this site and others will require a long term management plan to reduce acacia further.