Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
THURSDAY 8 JULY 2004
MR MARTIN
BRASHER, MR
MARTIN CAPSTICK
AND MR
NICK P WILLIAMS
Q240 Chairman: Can you help us by
giving us a sense of the scale of the improvement that you think
might be possible were there to be a centralised database and
notification system; would it make a material difference?
Mr Capstick: That is one of the
issues, in a way, we have not completely bottomed, because, as
Martin said, a lot of the information is held by different people.
For example, English Nature, who I sponsor, have very good information
on damage to SSSIs, which in a sense they manage themselves, and
that is particularly important for their role. Bodies like the
Bat Conservation Trust and National Federation of Badger Groups
are very good at noting what offences are being prosecuted, and
convictions, and drawing those to our attention. The main benefit
that one could get would be to have a view of the overall scale
of activity. Most people who have appeared before the Committee
have said, "a lot of what we are doing is speculating."
The difficulty we face there—and this would be an ongoing
challenge, even if we had a central register—is non-detected
offences, the offences that people think may be happening out
there, but nobody is detecting them and nobody is absolutely sure
whether something that has happened is an offence or not.
Q241 Chairman: Like the reptiles
that we were talking about earlier.
Mr Capstick: Exactly. That would
be a classic case. A central register will not provide an answer
to solving that problem, and therefore that is one of the things
that we also need to think about. I am sure the Committee is thinking
about the question of broader enforcement.
Q242 Chairman: We are relieved to
notice that you assure us that ministers attach great importance
to tackling wildlife crime.
Mr Brasher: Can I come back briefly
on the Home Office point, because as there has been mention of
a stand-off, I think we should clarify the relationship there.
Q243 Chairman: You are so cautious,
are you not?
Mr Brasher: I know it is being
recorded! There are some useful examples
Q244 Chairman: I do not think anyone
was—
Mr Brasher: No, but even so, to
be fair, since they are not here. We do have a joint secondment
with the Home Office, for example, to the National Wildlife Crime
Intelligence Unit, which you will be hearing more about soon,
I suspect. They very kindly allowed us to piggyback the Criminal
Justice Bill legislation last year, which allowed us to achieve
increased sentences for certain wildlife offences, which is something
we have long sought, and it was very opportune to have the opportunity
to seize that.
Q245 Chairman: I am glad you have
put that on the record! Can we move on to something slightly different.
There was a report in the Observer at the end of March,
entitled Revealed: UK zoos caught in rare wildlife trade with
dealer, about the way that some British zoos are over-breeding
rare forms of wildlife and then selling them to allegedly unscrupulous
dealers. Presumably, you are aware of the issue.
Mr Brasher: Yes, I am aware of
the article.
Q246 Chairman: Was the article a
fair portrayal of the scale and nature of the activity?
Mr Brasher: We did not think so.
I think the Zoos Federation spoke on that within the article as
well. There are a large number of newspaper stories and information
that comes our way which does not get into the newspapers about
possible offences, and it is very hard really to be able to identify
exactly which ones to follow up and how to do so. What we do have
is a small unit within my Global Wildlife Division, which basically
acts as eyes and ears on this sort of thing, and will link in
with the appropriate authority. I think that that case is particularly
related to a Belgian dealer, so that information we passed on
to the Belgian Management Authority because there is constant
interaction between management authorities on issues like that
when a story comes through.
Q247 Chairman: Had any offence been
committed?
Mr Brasher: I think that will
be being investigated by the Belgian management authority because
zoos operate under a particular regime within the CITES regulations,
which allows them to do certain things under an article 30 certificate,
but it does mean that if they are dealing with external people
they have to be subject to the same provisions as anybody outside
the zoos community, and therefore it should be followed up.
Q248 Chairman: So there are some
controls on what zoos can and cannot do.
Mr Brasher: There are definitely,
yes. Zoos operate under the European Zoos Directive. That, to
a large extent, is modelled on the UK's own Zoo Licensing Act,
and we are a kind of market leader in that area. That specifies
very clearly what they are required to do in terms of complying
with the Secretary of State's standards, Modern Zoo Practice which
is issued.
Q249 Chairman: Does the Zoo Licensing
Act have teeth?
Mr Brasher: Yes.
Q250 Chairman: Can local authorities
under that Act revoke licences to zoo operators?
Mr Brasher: Yes, they can.
Q251 Chairman: On grounds of trading
in endangered species?
Mr Brasher: I do not know about
that. If an offence were committed, the zoo should be prosecuted
for that offence. The closing down of a zoo, or the revoking of
a licence, would depend more on whether the zoo was complying
with standards of animal welfare, the Secretary of State's standards,
complying with requirements of the Zoo Licensing Act.
Q252 Chairman: Have any zoos been
prosecuted under that Act?
Mr Brasher: I would have to check
that. I will come back to you.
Q253 Chairman: We have received evidence
from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which referred
to the increasing trade in endangered species through Internet
sites. What are you doing to tackle that problem?
Mr Brasher: This is a relatively
new issue for us. We have started on that. At the moment we have
one of our staff constantly monitoring the Internet, particularly
e-Bay, which is the largest auction site, although I believe there
are thirty altogether. She is contacting addresses that are offering
apparently illegal items. She has contacted 81 so far, to point
out to them what they may be doing. We need to check out that
they know what they are doing and have the appropriate paperwork.
Fifty-one of those have come back and said they did not realise
that there was paperwork they should have had, and ostensibly,
as far as we know, they have withdrawn the items from the market.
These are probably individual items. It may just be a small personal
heirloom or something like that, but she is looking for people
trading something which needs appropriate paperwork.
Q254 Chairman: An heirloom?
Mr Brasher: An ivory trinket,
for example. One of the problems we have in enforcing CITES is
the lack of awareness of the rules. It is a relatively complicated
regime. It has been around for some time and has become more complicated
as time goes by, as more species are added and taken on or change
their status. In particular, we have to target areas where we
think there may be a problem. Tourists are a prime example, so
we have a Souvenir Alert campaign, which is a leafleting campaign
at airports in particular, just reminding people that they cannot
go and bring back just anything at all. There are items which
it is not appropriate to bring back, even if they do look attractive
on the beach or whatever—coral and snakeskin bags and so
on. It is that kind of thing which is quite tricky to get at.
We have examples of people who have gone to live abroad and have
come back after thirty or forty years to be near their family,
and they bring with them things which they never suspected would
need a bit of paper to allow them to do it. It would not necessarily
be that they should not do it, but they do need to have the right
paperwork to import it.
Q255 Mr Thomas: When you talk of
awareness raising, I just happened to catch Bargain Hunt, or some
programme like that, but it was a broadcast programme of that
type, in which an ivory piece was featured. The dealer claimed
that it was pre-1947, whatever, but no mention was made in the
context of the programme, and actually it looked very new. Unless
you can prove that, unless you have the paperwork—there
was an opportunity missed there, to have a discussion in a popular
programme about what these items are. Are you working with the
broadcasters and people like that who are promoting, for entertainment
purposes, possibly a trade in endangered species?
Mr Brasher: That would have been
a good opportunity, and I agree with you that it was missed. We
are working quite hard on this sort of thing. Going back to the
e-Bay point, where traders or dealers were not interested in complying
with the requirements, we then passed information to the National
Wildlife Crime Intelligence Unit, and they have started a dialogue
with e-Bay in particular. The feedback I have is that e-Bay are
being very helpful and positive, and they are looking to amend
their display pages, which tell you what they can and cannot do.
We are looking to get more information there so that people know
that they will get a prompt or whatever to say, "are you
sure you can do this?" That is one point. On the point about
publicity, we try hard on that. An example recently is a report
by a non-governmental organisation, IFAW, about the illegal trade
in ivory within the UK particularly on the markets—Portobello
market, I believe—but basically through the market mechanism.
We are responding to that by doing a number of things. For example,
we have set up a dialogue with the Antique Dealers' Association
so that they can be more aware of what the controls and requirements
are. We are in the process of producing a leaflet for dealers
generally. Last month we attended the large antiques fair which
takes place at Olympia, in order to be around to talk to people
about what may or may not be acceptable under the CITES arrangements.
Sometimes we have to be prompted by external events that draw
something to our attention. In relation to Internet selling and
the IFAW report on ivory, we are trying to respond to those by
effectively targeting our publicity.
Q256 Sue Doughty: I congratulate
you on what you are doing with e-Bay. Those of us who have been
trying to deal with constituents who have been victims of various
scams are, however, aware of two problems. One is with e-Bay itself,
in that they will put warnings on front pages about the conditions,
but they are not very good at enforcement, nor have they been
very good about assisting in follow-up. I am very delighted to
see you have an international body dealing with it, because in
terms of the other criminal activity it has been absolutely impossible
to get anything done. How effective do you think you are going
to be in relation to these people who will put up an advert, get
in various e-mail addresses; and once they have done it they can
retreat from behind e-Bay so that they are not there in public;
but having been there, they have established a trading line with
people who might be interested in buying?
Mr Brasher: The best answer I
can give you is that the National Wildlife Crime Intelligence
Unit is on the job. This is a very recent development. Their meeting
with e-Bay was only in mid-June, about three weeks ago. I will
happily take that sort of point and advance it to them as well.
I cannot answer your question, I am afraid.
Q257 Sue Doughty: I think it falls
to me to explore a bit more about the legal framework of what
you are doing. We had a number of memoranda that referred to the
Defra review of Part I of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981.
Can you tell us when the review will begin, and what its remit
will be?
Mr Capstick: I take the lead on
that. We hope that we will publish a consultation document towards
the end of this year. Last year we wrote out to a number of interested
parties, highlighting the fact that we were planning to consult
on this, and that we were effectively seeking views in advance
on particular things that people would be interested in covering.
We then hope to go out to consultation later this year. I am afraid
I was given a note on the precise terms of reference, which I
put to one side, thinking we would not get into that amount of
detail. If you like I can have a quick sift through for it.
Q258 Sue Doughty: If you could let
us have it afterwards, that would be very helpful. The Wildlife
Trust's evidence is that they have concern because they want the
word "reckless" to be added to those sections in Part
I of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981, whereas at the moment
the requirement is to prove "intention", because of
the difficulty of proving intention in the court, and so it would
be much better to prosecute with the word "reckless".
Is this something you are going to look at?
Mr Capstick: It certainly is.
On the whole, most of the organisations that we deal with, as
a number of bodies have commented to you, are pretty responsible
and pretty knowledgeable, so they do not suggest things lightly.
Obviously, we take account of that in developing our proposals.
We will want to explore with them what the precise practical implications
of the changes would be. As I am sure you are aware, sometimes
you see theoretical gaps, which, when you analyse them, you find
you have to be quite clever to fill, or the gap is more theoretical
than practical. Certainly, we have had a number of sensible suggestions
already, and we are thinking about those things very seriously.
Q259 Sue Doughty: Another one is
this difference between "incidental" and "intentional",
the problem of rockhopper trawls and the pink sea fan being one
of them. Are you going to be looking at this and the whole issue
of where the killing and injuring of protected species occurs
incidentally in a lawful operation, which would provide a defence,
as opposed to whether the impact of such an action could reasonably
be avoided. How can we get over this one, so that we provide the
protection that is needed?
Mr Capstick: I do not have an
immediate answer to that question. It is a difficult challenge
that we are all facing, and we explore things as we go along.
That is one that we would want to discuss in more detail with
the Wildlife Trusts. I am afraid I have not seen the Wildlife
Trusts' note to the Committee.
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