Hilary Benn and Others Call For Coordinated Government Efforts to Save the Asian Elephant
At the Labour Party Conference yesterday, Hilary Benn MP expressed his very strong support for the campaign that Elephant Family is waging to save the Asian elephant, and spoke of the need for a more joined up government response to the problems facing the world. He was speaking at a fringe debate organised by Progress (the New Labour pressure group) on behalf of Elephant Family, which examined the increasing threats to the Asian Elephant and what can be done to help them, particularly by governments.
In her opening address, Ruth Powys, Director of Elephant Family, spoke of the great threats to the Asian elephant, the need for government involvement, and the need to act now. Pointing out that there are government budgets that can be focused towards biodiversity under the umbrella of Asian elephants, she also questioned what could be done beyond providing investment: “This meeting is our first step towards trying to engage with decision-makers and influencers to find out what the UK government is doing, what they’re willing to do, and whether there’s another way to solve this problem”.
Mr C. Rajasekhar, Political Minister from the High Commission of India, reminded those present of how central the elephant is to the ethos, law and culture in India and how the recent publication of the Elephant Task Force report laid out his government’s plans to protect them. These include recommendations: to create a new National Elephant Conservation Authority; to provide the equivalent of £80 million investment over five years; to organise an international conference on elephant conservation; and of course “to declare [the] elephant as a national heritage animal so that this helps to catch the imagination of the general public about the need to conserve and to protect the elephant”.
The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, then spoke of how what has been happening to the Asian elephant fits into the bigger challenge that the world faces to preserve that which is special about the small and fragile planet that we inhabit: “The fight to protect the Asian elephant is part of this bigger fight, and they are magnificent creatures and very powerful symbols of the importance of living in harmony with all of the creatures on this Earth”.
He pointed out that the international conference on biodiversity that is taking place in Nagoya, Japan, next month – the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity – is an opportunity to reflect on what has worked and what has not in terms of meeting biodiversity conservation targets, as well as to set new ones. However, he went on to say that there is more to it than that: “Those who are involved in wildlife and natural environment organisations, biodiversity, and care about climate change, understand instinctively why these things are important and matter. But not everybody sees that value for the future of humankind. We really have to change the way in which we think about the world and the natural environment in particular”.
Echoing these sentiments, but in the specific context of human-elephant conflict, Ian Cawsey, former Labour Party Vice Chair for Animal Welfare, added: “You can see where the conflict comes from. And actually a lot of the loss of elephants in Asia, and indeed in Africa for that matter, has been humans thinking that they are protecting what is theirs, because they don’t see a bigger picture. And it’s the bigger picture that we need to build, and of course to help those people to develop lifestyles in a way that they are not in conflict with elephant populations across the world”.
Displaying an extensive knowledge of measures to reduce human-elephant conflict, from the use of chilli on fences and planting crops that elephants won’t raid, to providing alternative incomes to farmers, education and community awareness, Mr Cawsey added: “There are solutions to this, there’s just not very much time to get them in place and to make them work. But if Labour and other political parties will give us their support in helping us in our work then I think we can make a huge difference and save these elephants”.
Finally, calling on the earlier speech of David Miliband MP about internationalism having to win over cynicism, he made it clear: “It’s actually internationalism at getting governments and organisations across the globe working together that means that you can deal with these sorts of issues in Asia and in Africa and find long-term solutions to it.”
While the debate touched on other issues, including the role that zoos could play in Asian elephant conservation – limited, at the very best, to just awareness raising in the better zoos – the main focus was on what governments can do. In particular, Robbie Marsland, UK Director of IFAW, asked “how can we approach this government – any government – about joined up thinking approaches to conservation” to have involvement throughout government in animal welfare and conservation.
In response, Hilary Benn confessed that when he was Secretary of State for International Development that the response to environmental work within the Department for International Development was not very positive, because they simply had other priorities at the time. He therefore went on to say that governments need to realise that the problems facing the world are increasingly interconnected and that a far more joined up response is required, with investment at the level of entire ecosystems.
Beyond that, in terms of what the UK government can do, Hilary Benn reminded us that while Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, he opposed a one-off sale of stock-piled ivory that was proposed earlier this year, arguing that “You can’t support something that’s going to damage the thing you’re trying to protect in the first place”: the moratorium on ivory-trading was upheld by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
In her concluding remarks, Ruth Powys confirmed that it had been a useful debate about joined up thinking, and while looking for leadership in the case of the UK, urged governments to put down on paper in a binding way what they’re going to do, and to make sure that recommendations are turned into action.
Finally, Emma Reynolds MP of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, who chaired the event, summed up by urging everyone to put pressure on the current government saying, “It’s great that you’ve raised this it at the conference and I think that we’ve got to do some follow-up actions now: this is just the start of it.”
Before departing, the speakers of the event then added their voice to the Elephant Family petition to save the Asian elephant, by signing a full-size elephant statue of the sort that adorned the streets of London earlier this year during Elephant Parade London, which Elephant Family hosted in partnership with Elephant Parade Ltd.
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written by Dan Bucknell on 28th September 10
