Nature Conservation: Crime
Question
Rachael Maskell
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has taken recent steps to implement the recommendations of the report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime entitled Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit Report: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, published on 6 August 2021.
Answer
We welcomed the UN Office of Drugs and Crime report (published by Defra on 17 December 2021) and that it recognised the UK's global leadership in fighting wildlife and forestry crime. We invited the UN to undertake this analysis and we are proud to be the first G7 country to request this assessment.
We have carefully considered all the recommendations of the report and they are informing our work to help us build on the positive progress we have already made in tackling wildlife crime. This will include strategic engagement with our partners that have responsibilities where individual recommendations are concerned such as the devolved administrations, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU).
Progress has already been made in response to the report. For example, in 2022 Defra more than doubled its funding of the NWCU from a total of £495,000 over the three previous years to £1.2 million for the three year period of 2022-25. Additionally, Border Force has increased numbers in their team specialising in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Defra is not under any obligation to formally respond to the UNODC's assessment and has no plans to do so, but we will identify where we can act, including with stakeholders, to strengthen the UK's approach to tackling wildlife and forestry crime.