Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to tackle trophy hunting across the world.

The Government takes the conservation of species seriously and we will always do whatever we can to protect the world’s most iconic species. The UK is a Party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) a global environmental agreement which aims to protect wildlife from unsustainable trade. Trophy hunting is not banned under CITES but Parties are required to have strict controls in place when trade in hunting trophies takes place. A permit will only be issued if no detrimental impact on the sustainability of endangered species can be shown and the trophy has been obtained from a legal and sustainable hunting operation.

Some conservation non-governmental organisations have set out how, in certain limited and rigorously controlled cases, scientific evidence shows that trophy hunting can be an effective conservation tool.