Dear Constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about the Ivory Act and elephant conservation.

The Ivory Act 2018 will bring into force one of the world's toughest bans on ivory sales. This also includes a ban on the purchase or hire of items containing elephant ivory, and applies to exports from and imports into the UK. The ban will cover items of all ages, not just those made after a certain date, and the maximum available penalty for breaching it will be an unlimited fine or up to five years in prison. I know that the ban will include certain narrowly-defined exemptions for items that do not contribute to poaching, where a ban would be unwarranted. By covering ivory items of all ages and adopting these narrow exemptions, the UK’s ban will be one of the toughest in the world.

Ministers will soon be taking the next steps to implement the relevant secondary legislation, in line with the Government's recent consultation response. I understand that progress on implementation was delayed by a legal challenge which the Government successfully defended. Ministers have also consulted on extending the Ivory Act to afford greater protections to a range of ivory-bearing species, including hippopotamuses and walruses, and I look forward to reading the Government's official response once this has been published. I am confident that the Government will soon be taking the next steps to implement the Ivory Act.

DEFRA has provided over £4.2 million in funding for Asian elephants living in the wild since 2015 through the Darwin Initiative and the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund. This includes funding towards a project seeking to reduce the illegal ivory trade in Cambodia, and a project supporting Nepal’s world-leading community anti-poaching efforts. 

The ban on ivory sales will build on work at home and overseas to tackle poaching and the illegal ivory trade. I was pleased to have been elected on a manifesto which committed to banning the import of hunting trophies from endangered species and ministers intend to implement this, as well as end the advertising for sale in the UK of low welfare experiences abroad, through the upcoming Animals Abroad Bill.

Banning ivory sales will reaffirm the UK’s global leadership on this critical issue, demonstrating our belief that the abhorrent ivory trade should become a thing of the past.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Yours,

EDWARD LEIGH MP