Wildlife: Crime
(asked on 30th November 2017) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment the Government has made of trends in wildlife crime; and what steps it is taking to tackle such crime.
Wildlife crime is a priority for Defra. Consequently, Defra and the Home Office have committed £300,000 a year to fund the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) until 2019/20.
The NWCU helps prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis which highlights local or national threats and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations.
Every two years the NWCU compiles a strategic assessment of wildlife crime in the UK. This is used to set UK wildlife crime priorities in conjunction with relevant enforcement authorities. The NWCU also compiles tactical assessments every six months to report on progress in tackling the wildlife crime priorities and to highlight any emerging threats or possible new priorities. The reports can be found on the NWCU website and also include information on trends:
Defra is co-chair of the Partnership for Action against Wildlife Crime, a collaboration of stakeholders who work together in partnership to reduce wildlife crime through prevention and awareness-raising, better regulation, and effective and targeted enforcement.