We participated in a meeting on Wednesday with the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove to discuss banning the import of hunting trophies. There were people round the table, representing NGO's and Government organisations on both sides of the debate.
It was quite a heated meeting with frank views expressed on both sides.  
There were few points of agreement during this meeting but one of them was the issue around canned lion trophy hunting. In a rare display of unity, we were joined by the DG of CIC (the leading European Trophy Hunting Organisation) and the UK representative of the SCI (Safari Club International) to condemn the practice of canned lion hunting.
As yet, Michael Gove has NOT made any decision on this issue even though he had previously met with Lord Ashcroft who also urged a ban to be put in place.
We also obviously discussed the issue of wild lion hunting and Pieter Kat and Christine Macsween made some significant interventions during the meeting. These were met with dismay by some of the pro trophy hunting representatives but David Macdonald from Oxford University at least acknowledged that his previously published report on the “benefits” of lion trophy hunting contained caveats of “hoped for” improvements in hunting practices that have not materialised in the past 24 years.

We discussed this petition with Mr Gove during the meeting and showed him how many of you have signed it and continue to do so! This petition matters!! Well done and big thanks to every single one of you. Please keep going!!!!

Mr Gove intimated that this was likely to be the first of several meetings which we welcome.
In the meantime, we all hope he will reflect on at least the canned lion hunting issue and bring in a much needed ban on their trophy imports.
Rest assured, we are on the case to make sure that lions, wild and canned, stay at the top of his agenda and we will continue to provide him with the evidence that shows the continuing disastrous declines in wild lion populations merit a ban on ALL lion trophy imports.

Later that afternoon, we attended the UK Parliament Adjournment Debate in Westminster Hall, asking the UK Government to ban hunting trophy imports. This was brought by Zac Goldsmith and we were absolutely delighted to see so many UK Members of Parliament turning up and speaking in support. In fact, ALL of the MPs present called for a ban.

One MP, Tracey Crouch, quoted this petition and said "" a petition by LionAid to ban lion trophy hunting imports into the UK has reached over 370,000 signatures and continues to accumulate further support."            

So well done everybody - please keep going. let's get to 500,000 signatures!

Sadly, the Minister receiving the Debate, Dr Therese Coffey (who had also attended the morning meeting with Michael Gove) was not moved and after all the speeches by MPs present, read her pre-prepared speech along the lines of the latest House of Commons Briefing Paper which states that “the UK Government is not considering a ban” at this time.

Let's hope when she and Mr Gove have had time to reflect on all the facts presented on the 15th, we might see a much needed ban on the import of all lion trophies into the UK.

We will continue to push Mr Gove for a ban on all lion trophy imports into the UK and are already planning the next steps. Watch this space.....

Please consider donating to this important campaign. We rely on individual donations to keep this important work going and our funds are truly extremely limited. 

The donations everyone has made from this page (when invited by Change.org following your signing of the petition) do not come to LionAid - they go to Change.org to keep their organisation moving forward.

If all of the 381,000 signatories could spare even just the price of a cup of coffee and use that money to instead send us a donation to help with this campaign, we could fund this important work and complete at least phase one to stop any further lion trophy imports from entering the UK.

With grateful thanks from Pieter Kat and Christine Macsween, LionAid.