§ 14. Mrs. Helen Brinton (Peterborough)What steps the Government are taking to secure the restoration of a ban on the international trade in ivory. [116156]
§ The Minister for the Environment(Mr. Michael Meacher)There can be no further international trade in ivory unless the 11th conference of parties to the convention on international trade in endangered species, which opens next week in Nairobi, agrees a specific proposal to permit that. The Government believe that any change to the conservation status of elephants under CITES would be premature. We are therefore urging all the proponents to withdraw their proposals on elephants. If they are not withdrawn, the UK, together with our European partners, will oppose all the proposals including those seeking further trade in ivory.
§ Mrs. BrintonI thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Has he, like me, seen the excellent article in The Mail on Sunday last week, entitled "Why killing elephants is again all the fashion"? It was about not just ivory, but a revival in trading in elephant skins. Will he assure me that the Government will do all they can at the talks in Nairobi later this week to support the position of Kenya and India, which want to ban that evil, wicked trade?
§ Mr. MeacherI can certainly assure my hon. Friend that we do not want a return to the large-scale poaching and full-scale ivory trading that characterised the 1980s; but for all trading in ivory to be ended and for elephants to be uplifted to appendix 1 of CITES, two conditions must be met. The first is that there must be evidence that the limited, experimental, one-off trade has led to an increase in poaching. The evidence is confused and there is no convincing proof. Secondly, the numbers must justify such a move. Elephant numbers are not small, their distribution is not restricted and they are not in decline. In the three countries concerned with the trade, over the past 15 years elephant numbers have quadrupled in Botswana, gone up sixfold in Namibia and nearly doubled in Zimbabwe. We are concerned to prevent any increase in ivory trading. That is why we have required all parties to withdraw their proposals so that we can monitor the illegal killing of elephants and provide convincing evidence for further action.