§ Mr. BurgonTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what was the outcome of the third dialogue meeting between African elephant range states held in Arusha, Tanzania from 28 September to 2 October; and if he will make a statement. [58949]
§ Mr. MeacherAs part of a continuing dialogue, African elephant range states met recently at Arusha to discuss implementation of decisions made at last year's CITES Conference to transfer the elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to Appendix II of the CITES Convention to enable limited trade in elephant products to resume. The UK and other contributors to the costs of the meeting, the European Commission, the USA and Japan, attended as observers.
The 1997 Conference decisions set a number of conditions that have to be met before an experimental one off transhipment of ivory from the three proponent states to Japan can go ahead next year. These include the establishment of new pan-African and Asian monitoring systems to assess the level of elephant poaching and illegal trade in ivory. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and TRAFFIC (the wildlife trade monitoring arm of IUCN and the World Wide Fund for Nature) were charged with developing these systems. Their proposals were presented to the Arusha meeting and endorsed by the range states present.
While African range states indicated their readiness to help finance the monitoring systems, there will be a need for external funding to get them up and running. Since effective monitoring systems will be vital to informing decision makers on whether the tenth Conference decisions have any adverse effect on levels of poaching and illegal trade, I am today pledging $40,000 of UK support for the new system to monitor illegal trade in ivory. This will enable the system to be set up and provide sufficient resources to fund its first year of operation.
The tenth Conference decisions also addressed the problem of growing Government stockpiles of ivory derived from management programmes and seizures. Parties agreed that fully audited stocks should be taken out of the system by way of non-commercial disposal. In return donors would provide financial assistance for 646W elephant conservation and community development programmes with all monies managed under Conservation Trust Funds. At Arusha, the fourteen African countries that have had their registered government stockpiles audited by TRAFFIC discussed the best way to proceed. They agreed to co-operate in seeking financial assistance for conservation by this means and to route any indications of interest through the CITES Secretariat.
In keeping with this spirit of co-operation and in the expectation that this will lead to offers from other donors, including conservation organisations, I am today writing to the CITES Secretariat to let them know that the UK is willing to contribute £60,000 to fund conservation work in return for disposal of part of the registered ivory stockpile.