Contribution
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate and for raising important points. As described earlier, extending the Act to these four species demonstrates UK leadership in support of international conservation efforts, setting an example at home to encourage similar actions globally. It makes the existing ban more effective and adds protections to four species that will complement those already in place internationally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
I was involved with this the first time around, back in 2018, and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, said, it seems to have taken an awful long time to get here. I wonder whether, like me, she had a stuffed narwhal on her desk—which my grandchildren have now chosen to play with. From our perspective, it is good to see these regulations in front of us.
This measure is part of a comprehensive package of UK leadership to tackle the illegal wildlife trade and reduce poverty, including through our Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, which has allocated £57 million to 173 projects across 60 countries. These projects are reducing demand for illegal wildlife products, strengthening law enforcement, establishing effective legal frameworks and promoting sustainable livelihoods.
I turn to answer some of the questions, and hope that we do not have another vote in the middle this time. I will look first at the consultation and stakeholder engagement that took place ahead of this. There was a call for evidence in 2019 and a public consultation from 17 July to 11 September 2021 on extending the Act to other species. The consultation received 997 responses and a clear majority supported an extension to these species. The previous Government published their response to the consultation in May last year.
There is a conservation risk to each species as exhaustible natural resources, which includes the trade in their ivory, both legal and illegal, and how this relates to their conservation status and other threats that they face. There was a clear demonstration in the proportion of respondents who supported this option and the comments submitted that commercial exploitation of species that are endangered or accepted as being in need of protection from the threat posed by trade in their parts violates public morality. So that was the consultation and its outcomes.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, asked specific questions around the effectiveness of the Act. One was how many elephants had been saved to date. This is a cross-cutting policy, so it is not possible to say what impact the Ivory Act alone has had. For example, the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund is a grant scheme that funds actions to tackle illegal wildlife and poverty reduction in developing countries. These projects contribute to reducing the demand for illegal wildlife products, strengthening enforcement and establishing effective legal frameworks, and promoting sustainable livelihoods through innovative approaches, partnerships and evidence-based interventions that protect endangered species, including elephants. So I cannot be specific, but it does play a role.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked for more information about why we are not extending it to walrus. As I said, walrus were included in the original consultation but are not now, because they continue to be protected under existing regulations on the trade in seal products. Under these regulations, seal products, including walrus ivory, can be imported and placed on the UK market for sale only in very limited circumstances and subject to strict conditions. You can bring seal products to Great Britain and sell them only if they qualify under the Inuit and other indigenous communities exemption and have a seal catch certificate. This is an attestation document that proves that the item is exempt and that the seal products are certified as coming from a traditional hunt carried out by the Inuit or other indigenous communities. The hunt must be carried out for and contribute to the subsistence of the community, and must consider the welfare of the animal. I hope that goes some way towards answering the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, around the fact that we work with indigenous communities on these pieces of legislation.
Further questions from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, were to do with trade and why we decided to add these species. The main problem is that international trade in these species needs to be regulated to ensure that it does not threaten the species’ survival. The UK is also a net exporter of ivory from these species, and we are concerned that it fuels global demand and the market for these ivories.