Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps are being taken to protect the (a) barking gecko and (b) other species endemic to the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The UK is providing technical advice and support to the Overseas Territories, including the Turks and Caicos Islands, to increase their capacity in dealing with the very real threats posed by invasive non-native species affecting biodiversity and endemic species such as the barking gecko and Turks and Caicos rock iguana.

Through the Darwin Plus funding scheme, UK funding has been used to support a project protecting the critically endangered Turks and Caicos rock iguana. This project addresses the need for effective biosecurity plans for two offshore islands in the Turks and Caicos Islands where there is an urgent need to protect threatened native wildlife, particularly globally important reptile populations, against invasive species. One of the project's key achievements is the stabilisation of the iguana population, leading to the reptile being downlisted on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2019.