The British Indian Ocean Territory is constitutionally distinct and separate from the UK, with its own laws and Administration. It is administered by the British Indian Ocean Territory Administration (BIOTA) who have responsibility for the protection of the Marine Protected Area, including issues relating to illegal unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The Government has made no assessment of a connection between poaching and halal butchery.

The UK has strict border controls in place to detect and prevent illegal imports. In 2022, Border Force seized two separate imports of rhino horn originating from China and South Africa. The UK’s National Wildlife Crime Unit also plays a critical role in preventing wildlife crime, including through intelligence work, threat analysis, and by directly assisting law enforcement.

Through our Biodiverse Landscape Fund we are working directly with partner Governments in the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area to tackle the illegal wildlife trade, including rhino poaching. We are also investing £30 million between 2022 and 2025 to tackle IWT globally, including through our Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.

The Government recognises the problems and distress which poaching can cause for local communities. Tackling it is one of the UK's national wildlife crime priorities.

The number of prosecutions for poaching in England can vary year from year due to a number of factors. For example, the levels of hare coursing, an abhorrent form of poaching, can be affected by the suitability of local ground conditions during a hare coursing ‘season’. If it is too wet, there is an increased risk that the vehicles used to facilitate coursing might get stuck in fields where hares are found so the activity is less likely to be carried out. If it is too dry, the dogs used by coursers are at an increased risk of injury. The numbers of prosecutions in a local area will also depend on effective enforcement. The level of resourcing assigned to tackle poaching may vary year from year depending on decisions taken by local police forces.

The difference in prosecutions between 2019 and 2023 might also have been affected by a key change in legislation. The 2019 figure provided by the Ministry of Justice in its answer of 21 March (HL3214) is from a time prior to the enactment of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. This legislation increased police powers and sentences for a number of hare coursing offences. It is reasonable to suspect it had a deterrent effect on potential offenders and offences that may have led to prosecution. In combination with this new legislation, improved police tactics, intelligence and information sharing as well as the use of community protection notices and criminal behaviour orders may also have had an impact on recent poaching prosecution numbers. Finally, it must be noted that the 2023 figure of 34 used in the Lord Bishop’s question is not consistent with the other years as it only includes prosecutions for the months from January to June rather than, as with the years being compared with it, the full calendar year.

Official figures are not held on the number of instances of violent crime or intimidation related to hare coursing or poaching. Hare coursing or poaching are not crimes which the police are required to notify to the Home Office. However, where violence or intimidation is used in connection with an incident of hare coursing or poaching this would be recorded under the relevant violence against the person or public order offence classification. However, it is not possible to separately identify those that are connected to hare coursing or poaching in the data held centrally by the Home Office.

It is standard practice for primary legislation to be subject to a post-implementation review after sufficient time has passed to assess its impact.

The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy aims to target hare coursing through better preventative action, improved intelligence, and enforcement activity.

The Government is committed to driving down rural crime and the Home Office continues to work closely with the National Rural Crime Unit to help ensure an effective police response to rural crime.

Official figures are not held on the number of instances of violent crime or intimidation related to hare coursing or poaching. Hare coursing or poaching are not crimes which the police are required to notify to the Home Office. However, where violence or intimidation is used in connection with an incident of hare coursing or poaching this would be recorded under the relevant violence against the person or public order offence classification. However, it is not possible to separately identify those that are connected to hare coursing or poaching in the data held centrally by the Home Office.

It is standard practice for primary legislation to be subject to a post-implementation review after sufficient time has passed to assess its impact.

The National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) Wildlife and Rural Crime Strategy aims to target hare coursing through better preventative action, improved intelligence, and enforcement activity.

The Government is committed to driving down rural crime and the Home Office continues to work closely with the National Rural Crime Unit to help ensure an effective police response to rural crime.

The Government recognises the impact which hare coursing has on rural communities. The Government has considered evidence from a wide range of stakeholders and the police on the problems caused by hare coursing, including with organised crime.

That is why we have introduced new measures to strengthen law enforcement and increase the powers of the courts through the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Act. They have been widely welcomed. The new offences and higher penalties introduced by the Act are all being used and imposed by the courts.

The Ministry of Justice publishes information on prosecutions, convictions, and sentencing outcomes for poaching offences. The latest data available, until year ending June 2023, can be obtained through the Outcomes by Offence data tool in the following link: Criminal Justice System statistics quarterly: June 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

A further breakdown of the published data is required to extract figures specific to poaching offences under the Game Act 1831, the Hunting Act 2004, and the Night Poaching Act 1828. Prosecutions and convictions for all years requested, from January 2019 until data is available up to June 2023, has been provided in Table 1 on a principal offence basis. The full calendar year for 2023 will be available in the next update of the Outcomes by Offence tool, expected in May 2024.

The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.

Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.

Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.

• Defra’s grant scheme – the IWT Challenge Fund – has supported projects to change behaviours, strengthen wildlife crime legislation, and help communities to protect the wildlife they rely on for their livelihoods. More information is available at https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/.

• Our support for rangers includes the British military’s Defra-funded Counter IWT Ranger Training Programme, which has helped wildlife parks work together to strengthen law enforcement and share information to disrupt smuggling and poaching across Africa.
• The UK is investing at least £12 million Overseas Development Assistance between 2024 and 2030 in Cameroon, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo through the £100 million Biodiverse Landscapes Fund. This programme aims to protect biodiversity and reduce poverty, with measures that intend to reduce human wildlife conflict and combat the illegal wildlife trade.

Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.

The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.

Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.

Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.

• Defra’s grant scheme – the IWT Challenge Fund – has supported projects to change behaviours, strengthen wildlife crime legislation, and help communities to protect the wildlife they rely on for their livelihoods. More information is available at https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/.

• Our support for rangers includes the British military’s Defra-funded Counter IWT Ranger Training Programme, which has helped wildlife parks work together to strengthen law enforcement and share information to disrupt smuggling and poaching across Africa.
• The UK is investing at least £12 million Overseas Development Assistance between 2024 and 2030 in Cameroon, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo through the £100 million Biodiverse Landscapes Fund. This programme aims to protect biodiversity and reduce poverty, with measures that intend to reduce human wildlife conflict and combat the illegal wildlife trade.

Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.

The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.

Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.

Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.

• Defra’s grant scheme – the IWT Challenge Fund – has supported projects to change behaviours, strengthen wildlife crime legislation, and help communities to protect the wildlife they rely on for their livelihoods. More information is available at https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/.

• Our support for rangers includes the British military’s Defra-funded Counter IWT Ranger Training Programme, which has helped wildlife parks work together to strengthen law enforcement and share information to disrupt smuggling and poaching across Africa.
• The UK is investing at least £12 million Overseas Development Assistance between 2024 and 2030 in Cameroon, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo through the £100 million Biodiverse Landscapes Fund. This programme aims to protect biodiversity and reduce poverty, with measures that intend to reduce human wildlife conflict and combat the illegal wildlife trade.

Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.

The UK is committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities and the economy while protecting global security. As part of this commitment, we are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025 to directly counter poaching and the illegal wildlife trade. Through Defra’s grant scheme, the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, we are funding practical projects to protect endangered species – including jaguars - and reduce poverty in developing countries. This includes a project that aims to tackle the poaching of jaguars by targeting the illegal jaguar teeth trade in Bolivia by expanding local intelligence networks. Further information on Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund projects is available here: https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/.

The Secretary of State has not discussed the levels of rhino poaching with her counterpart in the Botswana Government. However, officials met with the Botswana delegation, including the Minister of Environment and Tourism, ahead of and during the Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES COP19). Discussions covered a range of important biodiversity issues, including sustainable conservation and the challenges facing local communities living alongside large animals.

The Secretary of State has not discussed the poaching of rhinos in Namibia with her Namibian counterpart. However, her Ministerial team recently met with their counterparts in Namibia in advance of CBD CoP15 and discussed a range of biodiversity issues, including protected areas and species targets.

The UK is fully committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities and the economy, and protect global security. At the recent Conference of Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES COP19) held in Panama, the UK engaged proactively in discussions with Namibia and other countries on the continued poaching and illegal trade in rhinos, fully supporting the reconvening of the Rhinoceros Enforcement Task Force which we consider to be a key instrument for addressing this issue. The illegal harvesting of wildlife has also been identified as a priority issue in Namibia and the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) under our new Biodiverse Landscapes Fund. Through this we aim to strengthen policy, legal and judicial procedure by improving the capacity of investigators and prosecutors, facilitating intelligence analysis and information sharing, supporting legislative reform, and revising sentencing guidelines for wildlife crimes.

The UK is committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities and the economy, and protect global security. We are investing over £46 million globally between 2014 and 2022 to counter illegal trade by reducing demand, strengthening enforcement, ensuring effective legal frameworks and developing sustainable livelihoods. Through the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) Challenge Fund the UK has committed over £900,000 to the Legal Intelligence for Cheetah Illicit Trade (LICIT) Fund to enhance national and regional capacity in the Horn of Africa, including in Somaliland, to fight wildlife crime by strengthening national and regional level legal capacity and increasing community capacity and ownership of wildlife resources.

This Government takes wildlife crime, including poaching, seriously and is committed to ensuring the protection wildlife legislation offers is effectively enforced. We also recognise the issues and distress that poaching can cause for rural communities. Crimes such as deer poaching and hare coursing are completely unacceptable. Significant sanctions are already available to judges to hand down to those convicted of wildlife crime. A person guilty of a poaching offence under the Deer Act for example can receive a fine of up to £2,500 and / or up to three months in prison.

The Government has no current plans to introduce harsher sentences for poaching in general. However, our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, published in May this year, sets out our commitment to crack down on illegal hare coursing-related activity, providing law enforcement with more tools to address the issue effectively, including through legislation when Parliamentary time allows.