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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions her Department has had with governments in Africa on UK support for efforts to ensure the survival of lions in the wild.

The UK is actively supporting efforts to ensure the survival of African lions in the wild and has entered into various discussions both directly and indirectly with various governments. Earlier this year Defra helped fund an African lion range country meeting held in Uganda which 28 lion range countries attended. Discussions took place about the conservation, management and restoration of the lion and its habitat in Africa and agreed a number of important messages in the final communique.

The UK has taken a strong interest in the issue of hunting of lions and worked with the Member States of the European Union to develop a proposal to CITES to strengthen controls to ensure that hunting of lions is sustainable. In addition the UK chaired negotiations on lion conservation at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species Conference of Parties held in Johannesburg from 24 September to 5 October this year. This saw the trade in wild lion bones banned and the establishment of a new CITES Task Force.

.