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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to support the Indian government in protecting Asian elephants.

The UK is committed to conserving Asian elephants and recognises the growing threats to their populations, particularly from poaching and cross-border, illegal trade in live animals to feed the demand by the tourist and entertainment industries. The UK has been working internationally through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in discussion with elephant range states, including India, to increase protection for Asian elephants. We secured agreement in 2014 for elephant range states to put in place measures to prevent illegal trade in live elephants.

The Darwin Initiative, a UK Government grants scheme that helps to protect biodiversity and the natural environment, has in the past contributed over £300,000 towards a five-year project in Assam, India, helping to mitigate human-elephant conflict. Indian organisations working on elephant protection will also be eligible to apply for funding under a second round of the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, part of the £13 million that the Government has made available to support action to tackle the illegal wildlife trade.

As a global leader on this issue, the UK Government hosted the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade in February 2014 and played a major role in the success of the follow-up conference in Botswana in March 2015. The UK Government has a broad and deep relationship with India on a wide range of issues, including biodiversity, and we look forward to working further with the Indian Government on the protection of the Asian elephant and other threats to biodiversity in that region.