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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his African counterparts on tackling poaching on the African continent.

The UK is committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit nature, people, the economy and protect global security.

The UK Government engages regularly with key counterparts across Africa on the illegal wildlife trade, including through our overseas missions. We are mobilising the expertise of the British military to provide professional training to Zambian park rangers in more effective and safer counter-poaching techniques. Furthermore, we engage regularly in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) to support the delivery of the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund, a new £100 million programme, that will deliver conservation, poverty reduction and climate outcomes, including tackling the illegal wildlife trade and poaching. KAZA is an area spanning five countries in southern Africa and hosting fifty percent of Africa's savannah elephants.