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

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the paper, 'Insights into the primate trade into the European Union and the United Kingdom', by Svensson et al, published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research on 25 April 2023; and what steps they will take to quantify the illegal importation of wildlife into Britain and to end it.

We have made no formal assessment of the paper by Svensson et al.

All primates are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), ensuring any international trade in these species is sustainable. Each year thousands of illegal products containing endangered species are seized by Border Force. These seizures are quantified in the UK’s annual illegal trade report to CITES and made available in the CITES Illegal Trade Database.

The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT), including through our Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund and through the National Wildlife Crime Unit’s Strategic Assessment for Wildlife Crime which aims to support UK and Global enforcement responses to IWT.

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