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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the UK voted against the upgrading of elephant populations remaining in Appendix II to Appendix I at the recent Convention on International Trade and Endangered Species conference.

The UK Government is committed to tackling the crisis facing the African elephant from poaching and illegal trafficking. We fully support the existing global ban on ivory trade. The view of the UK and the EU was that the large and growing elephant populations of southern Africa did not meet the scientific criteria established by CITES for their inclusion in Appendix I of the Convention.