Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the declaration from the recent London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, what progress his Department has made on implementing the declaration of the previous such conference in 2014.

The implementation of the 2014 London Conference Declaration has been led by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has supported this work both financially and through our overseas network of posts which is working with international organisations, governments, NGOs and businesses across the globe to combat Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT).

Between 2014 and 2021 Her Majesty's Government will be investing over £36 million on action to tackle IWT. Significant progress has been made, and since 2014 the UK has:

- Funded 61 projects through the IWT Challenge Fund, including: training border force agents and prosecutors; campaigning to reduce demand in key markets; supporting legislative reform and helping communities to manage and benefit from their wildlife. It also funds projects tackling corruption.

- Provided British Army personnel to train park rangers in key African states.

- Supported INTERPOL's work on intercepting shipments of ivory, rhino horn and other illegal wildlife products and the International Consortium for Combatting Wildlife Crime in assisting Governments to strengthen their criminal justice systems and enhance enforcement capabilities.

- successfully lobbied to increase the Global Wildlife Programme from $131m to $168m

- Worked with UN, G20 and EU partners - as well as NGOs, business and law enforcement experts - to build a global coalition against IWT.

A raft of new measures were announced at the London 2018 conference which build on the commitments being implemented following the IWT conferences in London in 2014, Kasane in 2015 and Hanoi in 2016. 57 countries have adopted the London 2018 Declaration, with more expected to sign. We will continue to work with our international partners to make further progress on the commitments pledged at all the IWT conferences.