Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps with (a) international counterparts, (b) charities and (c) rangers to help tackle the poaching of elephants.
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.
Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.
Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.
Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.