An article in the UK Guardian newspaper today reported that the UK government has finally made some steps to ban the imports of trophy hunted species – and has generously broadened the definition from an initial “endangered” species ban to a ban of all species listed on CITES Appendices I and II, and the EU equivalent of species listed on their Annexes A and B.
This is important, as the “endangered” category would NOT have banned a range of hunted species like lions, polar bears, South African white rhinos, hippos, elephants hunted in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, etc.
However, while George Eustace, UK’s environment secretary said that the proposed bill would be “… one of the toughest in the world and would go beyond the government’s manifesto commitment by including near-threatened and threatened species as well as endangered ones” and that “We will be leading the way in protecting endangered animals and helping to strengthen and support long-term conservation,” parliament will not debate the matter until next spring or summer. This would of course in the meantime allow UK hunters to import their trophies probably well into the autumn, allowing them to take full advantage of the 2022 “hunting season” in many African nations.
Inevitably, therefore, this delay for Parliament to be able to debate this rather urgent bill is going to lead to the tragic death of yet more of our rapidly declining lions.
We at LionAid began our campaign to ban import of lion trophies in 2010. We were able to arrange two Parliamentary Adjournment Debates on this matter, spoke with many ministers and scores of parliamentarians, made almost weekly trips to Westminster to lobby, initiated a campaign on Change.org collecting 725,862 signatures (so far) – delivered personally to Downing Street - wrote endless letters and articles justifying the ban, spoke with dozens of journalists and featured in many articles in the print media, participated in radio and TV programmes, collaborated with like-minded organizations across the world – all to be met with complacency and empty promises. Total frustration!!
Another inexplicable and endless delay is evident with implementation of the Ivory Bill – the bill was given Royal Assent in December 2018, having passed through the parliamentary process rapidly – but has still not come into force
If such delays will also plague the trophy hunting import ban, we could be waiting until 2025…
Nevertheless the announcement IS a step in the right direction. We with others will now seek urgency to have the bill debated by Parliament and rapid implementation after the inevitable passage.