Author Archives: Catherine Bearder MEP

Last week I attend the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference (IWT) in London. The optics were every bit as impressive as you would imagine for such an occasion. In attendance, there was a star-studded line-up of celebrities such as Ben Fogle and Nicky Campbell, UK cabinet ministers Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove, African presidents and even the Duke of Cambridge himself. It felt like the grand opening for the international fight back against wildlife crime and was a great marker for real action on this criminal activity.

The flagship policy launched at the conference was the ‘Ivory Alliance 2024’, which will link the UK with international partners to introduce domestic ivory bans globally by the end of 2020.  Again, the list of partners is really quite impressive: The Prime Minister of New Zealand, MPs from Hong Kong and the Philippines, and a Tourism Minister from Uganda. The UK is absolutely right to work with a range of different international actors, but there was something lacking, something so obvious: the European Union. 

Where was the French Government who just introduced one of the toughest ivory bans on the planet? Where was Europol who have been providing cutting-edge police intelligence to help national police forces catch wildlife traffickers? Where was the European Commission to explain how Member States are progressing with the 2015 EU Action Plan against Wildlife Trafficking?  This plan not only addresses the crimes in Europe, but also works with countries across the world to take real action in the fight to protect biodiversity. This deliberate sidelining of the EU’s work on wildlife trafficking is very counterproductive. Surely, if we are to win this fight, we need to work collaboratively with partners, a point that was made in numerous sessions at the conference.  

I was honoured to be part of the European Parliament’s observer delegation to the CITES CoP17 in South Africa. As a campaigner for wildlife protection I know the opportunity to influence protection at the highest level is rare.

Before I headed to South Africa I voted in favour of a European Parliament resolution calling for all elephants to be listed on Appendix 1 of CITES (the Convention in Trade of Endangered Species) This would mean in effect a total ban on the international trade in elephants.

The resolution was overwhelmingly supported by MEPs which shows the European Parliament’s strong opposition to the trade in elephants and their ivory which in the past decade alone has seen the loss of 110,000 African elephants as a result of poaching and the massive global demand for ivory tusks as well as for trophy hunting.

It’s been a tough few weeks for all of us who believe in the European ideals of cooperation, openness and trade between nations. But as if the referendum result was not bad enough, the aftermath has left the UK the laughing stock of the world. First there was the resignation and disappearance of many of those who led the Leave campaign and the shameless disowning of key pledges on the NHS and immigration. Then last week a number of leading Tory Brexiteers were elevated by Theresa May to the highest offices of the state.

We have seen Brexit Minister David …

There are now just 100 days to secure Britain’s place in Europe. There is so much at stake. If we leave, the country faces a future of uncertainty, isolation and diminished influence in the world. If we stay we will secure opportunity, prosperity and security for future generations and we can lead the way in shaping a better, more liberal Europe.

Every 15 minutes an elephant is killed for its ivory. This rapid rate of human destruction has seen the population of African elephants plummet from 10 million in 1910 to a low 434,000 now.

If we want to protect elephants from being confined to the history books we need to act now.

That’s why this week I called for an EU Action Plan to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade in a letter to the new European Commission, co-signed by 82 fellow MEPs from 24 countries.

The joint campaign with the Sunday Mirror and Born Free has already attracted broad-based support from all of the party groupings in the parliament. Many of my colleagues can see that we can no longer dilly-dally if we want to halt and reverse the terrifying trend which sees many creatures firmly on the road to extinction.

Now that the people of Scotland have voted to remain a part of the UK, discussions over what further devolution of powers for Scotland will take place – as well as for the other British nations and regions – will inevitably dominate public debate. However, a big risk facing us as a country is that we become too introspective, turning in on ourselves rather than looking at the wider picture.

That’s because as well as a new constitutional arrangement, we desperately need a unifying vision of Britain and its place in the world. Indeed, it’s the lack of such a vision that has been one of the key factors fuelling Scottish separatism and the nationalism that feeds UKIP.