Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR PAUL
BUCKLEY, MS
SARAH SANDERS
AND MR
VASSILI PAPASTAVROU
30 JANUARY 2007
Q1 Chairman: Good morning to you and
it is nice to see you here for this first session of our inquiry
into the role of the FCO in sustainable development, et cetera.
I apologise for the delay in seeing you but we were unfortunately
not able to establish a quorum last week. We are only three members
serving on the Sub-Committee at the moment so we do need all three
on each occasion. It is very good of you to come back. Could you
briefly introduce yourselves and perhaps give us a perspective
on where you stand in relation to the Government's performance,
particularly the FCO's performance on these issues?
Mr Buckley: Good morning. I am
Paul Buckley from the International Division of the RSPB and my
colleague Sarah Sanders is working in the same team. Sarah is
particularly involved in the Overseas Territories and has just
come back last week from Montserrat and Anguilla to look at a
couple of our projects there. The RSPB take our primary experience
with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from first of all our
advocacy work on a whole range of international issues and multilateral
agreements and secondly from our work around the world building
capacity with Birdlife International partners and NGOs and small
government departments on the Overseas Territories. Through that
work we have interacted with the FCO both here and in the posts
overseas for a number of years. We very much try to work on the
ground with those organisations and as well as partner development
work we have a number of big projects, including a couple of big
avoided deforestation projects in Sierra Leone and Sumatra which
together cover about 170,000 hectares of tropical forest. The
core of our links with the FCO over the last few years has been
with the Overseas Territories and that is certainly our current
priority and it is certainly an area where we are already actively
in dialogue with the FCO. I know you have heard a lot in your
discussions on the MEA about the biodiversity crisis and we do
consider with the 16,000 species known to be threatened with global
extinction, that this is something that is a major challenge and
something that the UK is incredibly well-placed to lead on and
be very proud of its work on. We do feel at the moment that a
lack of a clear biodiversity focus and environmental focus as
far as the Overseas Territories are concerned within the FCO really
means we are lagging behind on these responsibilities. We think
that the Sustainable Development Strategy is a laudable document
and obviously with priorities like climate change, sustainable
logging, and so on, we cannot argue with anything in there, but
we feel that biodiversity has a rather low profile, and even within
the strategy it talks about funding programmes for biodiversity
and in fact those have now been abandoned in the last couple of
years, and it is very difficult for us to envisage getting funding
today for some of the very successful programmes we have had in
collaboration with the FCO in past years. You have seen our key
points in the submission. I think the two things we seek most
immediately are really an explicit recognition within the FCO
and within the posts globally that biodisversity is a strategic
priority. Secondly, I mentioned that we seek adequate resources
for the very important work of conserving biodiversity in the
Overseas Territories. We know of 47 birds in the Overseas Territories
which are considered to be globally threatened so there is an
immense biodiversity resource there which the UK has direct responsibility
for. As a final point, there has been a lot of discussion about
who should have responsibility for that, whether it should be
Defra, whether it should be FCO, or whether it should be somebody
else, and I suppose from our point of view, to be honest, we do
not really care, we just want somebody to take that responsibility
and make sure those resources are available. At the end of the
day it does fall to the FCO to be the ambassadors for the Overseas
Territories; maybe it is Defra, maybe it is somebody else, but
it is the FCO's responsibility to make sure that happens, whoever
then provides the resources and the expertise.
Mr Papastavrou: My name is Vassili
Papastavrou and I am a whale biologist with the International
Fund for Animal Welfare which was set up in 1969 and works to
improve the welfare of wild and domestic animals, but mainly wild
animals, throughout the world. I think we are unusual for having
that focus on wild animals, specifically on whales and seals and
animals that are both rare and abundant, so on the one hand we
have looked at the exploitation of Canadian harp seals which are
sill abundant and we have also tried to maintain protection for
Mediterranean monk seals which are extremely endangered. The same
is true for our work on whales. We have worked to try and address
the problem of commercial whaling. At the same time we are also
working on some extremely endangered populations of whales such
as the grey whales in the Western Pacific which now number only
100 and are threatened by oil exploration. Our focus on commercial
whaling has obviously centred around two Conventions; the International
Whaling Commission, and when I started working for IFAW in 1992
there were round about 30 active members, there are now 72 active
members; and the much large Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species, which now has round about 170 members.
Our work as an NGO has had quite a strong scientific component
and we have found science a useful tool in trying to get our message
across, so for example we have funded DNA analyses of whale meat
on sale in Japan and Korea for about ten years, and for 20 years
we have been engaged in benign research on whales using our research
vessel Song of the Whale which most recently was in Iceland.
When I started personally studying live whales in 1984 it was
seen as a bit of a joke and at that stage the only real way to
do it was to study dead animals, but now there has been a transformation
in the way that we study whales and most of the really interesting
things that have been learnt and most of the conservation problems
that we are trying to address are through studies on live animals.
I mention our research vessel Song of the Whale because
it is registered in London and we have had some extremely good
support from the FCO when we have come to work in a variety of
countries and we have found that the embassies have actually helped
us a great deal. As an NGO we have offices in 15 countries and
reasonably good contacts in perhaps another 12, and if you consider
the disparity between that and 170 members of CITES, it is clear
that we need to work with governments who have a much wider representation.
I suppose we have seen the real strengths that the FCO can bring
perhaps most specifically when the UK decided to push the listing
of the basking shark in Appendix 2 of CITES. It took two CITES
conferences of the parties for this proposal to be successful,
and for both of them we saw an extremely strong team go to CITES
with a clear foreign policy objective and not only work during
the meeting to achieve the objective but actually work before
the meeting through the British embassies and contacts abroad
and also even during the meeting phoning those embassies, so we
can see that when the UK has an environment foreign policy objective
that it wants to pursue it can really apply a huge amount of force.
It should be remembered that it was not an easy listing of this
particular species because many countries took the view that as
a fish it was not really the responsibility of the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species to give it protection.
However, what we are seeing now is a downplay in the interest
of the Foreign Office in the issues that we are most directly
involved with and we are not seeing the same kind of regular contact
and interest that we have seen in previous years, particularly
I would say on the whaling issue. Thank you.
Q2 Chairman: What would you ascribe
that to?
Mr Papastavrou: When things were
going well we had a team within the Foreign Office who were not
only experts on the issue itself so they knew and understood the
complexities (of in this case the whaling issue but the same was
also true of other environment issues) but they also knew how
to use the Foreign Office network in order not only to influence
other countries but to find out what was going on, so we often
received information coming back from those posts and we were
then able to interact and provide the more technical knowledge
that we had ourselves.
Q3 Chairman: Has that dried up? What
has happened to that?
Mr Papastavrou: I think it is
fair to say that there are no longer any real experts on the whaling
issue within the FCO and the lead in theory is taken by Defra
but we are finding that in some cases FCO officials do not even
attend the meetings of Wildlife Link, which is the whole NGO community,
and if they do they are fairly passive, they are not contributing
actively to our discussion of the issues.
Q4 Chairman: But they used to do?
Mr Papastavrou: They certainly
used to, yes. Maybe we are going to come on to this later but
we did a quick analysis of the UK missions which have closed down
in recent years and there is a remarkable similarity between the
countries where missions have closed down and the countries where
Japan is either recruiting votes for the IWC or has already bought
votes, so we are losing influence in albeit small countries but
they are countries that still have a vote in the big conventions
which we are dealing with.
Q5 Chairman: It sounds like we are
in retreat but is it coincidence that the list you have shows
that pattern or have you picked up anything to suggest that this
is a deliberate policy?
Mr Papastavrou: I could not really
argue as to whether it is coincidence or not; it just happens
to be the case. We have lost embassies in Mali, Nicaragua, Kiribati,
Cote d'Ivoire, Tonga, and in fact recently Anne Main MP wrote
to the consulate of the Republic of Kiribati and the reply indicated
that although the consul was sympathetic to our position he concluded
the letter by saying: "Unfortunately following the cessation
of UK aid over the past few years, especially the much valued
VSO programme, and then the closure of the British High Commission
in Tarawa last year, the UK has lost much of the influence over
public opinion in Kiribati that it used to have", so here
is a very clear example from a tiny country, that is also seriously
threatened by climate change so you could argue that our interest
in the whaling issue is fairly small, of where the UK has lost
some influence in a particular country.
Q6 Chairman: My question to all three
of you following on from that is whether or not you would say
that the environment and sustainable development has sufficiently
high priority for the FCO?
Mr Buckley: We feel that there
are perhaps some distinctions. There is no question when you look
at certain key environment issues that the UK Government has taken
a strong lead internationally, and I think we would acknowledge
on climate change issues and to some extent on issues like sustainable
logging and bush meat and so on they have done a lot on the international
scene and also on things like illegal fishing and so on. Specifically
on biodiversity there is really very little evidence of the UK
really seeing this as a strategic issue. As I said earlier, that
is reflected in the Sustainable Development Strategy. Although
we get enormous support from individual embassies and individual
ambassadors and their staff overseas and so on, obviously there
is nothing being driven from the centre that is saying this is
something they should be spending their time on. I think it is
something that the UK could be making much, much more of, particularly
in these really key countries like Madagascar, Brazil, China,
India and so on where they are incredibly important countries
for biodiversity, and I do not think we are really reflecting
that. There does not seem to be acknowledgement in the Foreign
Office of the links between environmental issues, development,
security and stability and on which we believe there are very
clear links. I do not want to suggest it is just about money,
yes, of course we would like money for conservation but we also
want that role as ambassadors for the issue.
Ms Sanders: Just thinking about
the Overseas Territories in particular, I do not think the UK
Government is meeting its environment responsibilities, particularly
as it signed up to the International Convention on Biological
Biodiversity for most of the territories. At the moment there
are over 240 species which are threatened with extinction but
at the same time livelihoods on the territories are almost utterly
dependent on their biodiversity and natural resources. You only
have to look at the fisheries in the Falklands and in Tristan
da Cunha, you only have to look at tourism in the Caribbean; biodiversity
underpins the economies of those territories and it is very difficult
to see how the Foreign Office can ensure security and stability
unless it assists territories in conserving natural resources
and biodiversity.
Q7 Chairman: You have made an argument
that particularly in our relationships with problematic countries
that this force for unity focusing on biodiversity can be very
important. Do you want to expand a little bit more on that theme?
Mr Buckley: As with anything like
this, you can find good examples and bad examples and I am sure
somebody else could produce bad examples of where it has not,
but I think what environmental and conservation issues very often
do is that they are a way of bringing together groups of people
who otherwise would not perhaps talk to each other. I think we
can cite a number of our projects where we have got everybody
involved from local communities up to in some cases presidents
of countries. I am thinking particularly of our project in Sierra
Leone at the moment where we are attempting to conserve the last
big area of rainforest, and for a country just coming out of civil
war and I believe recognised as the poorest country in the world,
the project has included all of those groups and we have regular
meetings with the President and at the same time we are talking
to people in the villages around the forest and that really has
brought people together in some of the divided communities in
a very impressive way. We hope in the longer term we will extend
that programme perhaps to the Liberian side of the forest and
of course that brings in the whole concept of peace parks and
things which have been very effectively implemented in Southern
Africa and Central America, big areas of border zones which can
promote stability between countries that have at times been at
loggerheads. Just one other example, I think, which is quite a
good one from Birdlife's work which is this is an area where we
have found in some cases that we have been able to work in countries
which I think the UK finds quite difficult to work with but at
the same time courts a very high priority. I am thinking here
of some work I have been involved in over the last couple of years
in Syria. For one thing, it is a good news story from Syria in
a sense, which is not always the case, and it is also something
where we have worked very closely with the embassy and we have
been able to build quite a good rapport between the two Governments
and ourselves. There is a final example from the Birdlife International
partnership, and sadly I cannot say this is still the case because
over the last three or four years it has been more difficult,
but certainly for a good ten or 15 years we had partners in both
Israel and Palatine and those two organisations were working extremely
closely together, sharing training and collaborating on projects.
That is perhaps the ultimate example in the world of where two
very difficult countries can collaborate on issues such as this.
Mr Papastavrou: Just maybe to
follow on from Paul's point, I think we all have some good examples
where we have worked very closely with particular ambassadors
in particular countries and there does seem to be some really
serious interest in some of the work that both RSPB and IFAW are
doing in some countries. For us the best recent example is Iceland
where both the British ambassador and his predecessor have maintained
a really close relationship with us. The present ambassador is
very well-connected in Iceland and has given us a huge amount
of help in first of all obtaining a research permit for our vessel
and then in a whole variety of other ways, but we do not see the
whole thing being driven centrally. I think it is fair to say
that the whaling issue does not seem to be a foreign policy objective
for the UK in the way that it is for Japan, so we see Japan working
year round in all the countries where it has representation to
secure the objective it wants and we do not see the same coming
from the UK at all.
Q8 David Howarth: The one thing we
need to do is ask you to respond to what we expect the Government's
responses to be to your criticisms. One of those is that if, for
example, you take one of the apparent causes of the downgrading
of the importance of biodiverstity and other environmental issues
is that inside the FCO the Environmental Policy Department appears
to have disappeared and appears to have merged with something
called the Sustainable Development and Business Group, and that
does not look too great, but their response would possibly be
that this is a good thing because we have got a mainstream sustainable
development and it is good to bring it together with business
and to make sure the economic policy and environmental policy
are done at the same time. How do you respond to that sort of
response that I think we will probably get from them?
Ms Sanders: In principle, it sounds
good but in terms of the Overseas Territories there is no-one
within that team who has any responsibility for biodiversity so
when they are looking for advice from the UK Government they do
not know where to go. I suppose the response from the Foreign
Office will be, "Contact Defra." I had someone on the
phone from Ascension last week with a question about CITES, "Who
do I get in touch with?" I have one or two contacts in Defra
but I have never been told by Defra who is the person responsible
for CITES for the UK Overseas Territories. The roles and responsibilities
are not clearly defined and it is almost as if they are trying
to pass the responsibility between two government departments
so it just slips between the cracks.
Mr Buckley: It is entirely up
to the Foreign Office how they structure themselves, and I do
not think we want to comment on the whys and wherefores in one
sense. As with everywhere in the world, restructurings can either
work or fail and it is not necessarily to do with the principle
of the restructuring, it is more to do with how it works in practice.
I think in a way the mere existence of something called the Environmental
Policy Department suggested that this is a strategic priority
and it is something which the Foreign Office takes seriously.
Yes, with it being mainstreamed that might be good but you have
to burrow quite hard down into that structure to find people who
do have responsibilities for particular issues, and I think potentially
the issues we are interested in of sustainable tourism, logging
and marine biodiversity are all in different groups and there
are no obvious, as people have said, experts within that and many
people have responsibilities, so I think yes mainstreaming is
great but where are the champions for the subject in that sense
within that.
Mr Papastavrou: I think from our
point of view what we are missing more than anything is experts
on environment issues within FCO, people who know and understand
the environment issues, they just do not seem to be there any
more. One could argue that not all environment issues are sustainable
development issues and in some cases if you are trying to protect
the environment you have to actually protect it. The UK in certain
areas has a policy of for example not using certain species such
as whales, so I think sustainable development might send slightly
the wrong message and I think the additional problem of not having
environment and biodiversity experts within the FCO means that
there is no central way for the embassies to be briefed and to
work together to secure a good result.
Q9 David Howarth: What about their
other argument which I am sure they are going to make which is
that climate change is the big issue and although there is an
interaction between climate change and biodiversity nevertheless
they have got limited resources and they should put those resources
towards the biggest possible issue; climate change. How do you
respond to that point?
Ms Sanders: Looking at it from
the perspective of the Overseas Territories, most of which are
small islands so they are considerably threatened by climate change,
you cannot address climate change issues and you cannot adapt
to climate change without looking at conservation of biodiversity
and natural resources. If you are looking to reduce vulnerability,
there are huge areas of mangrove and coral reefs, which can reduce
the vulnerability of territories, but they all need to be protected
. You cannot separate the two.
Q10 David Howarth: You mentioned
Defra and the response seems to be to ring up Defra. If you ring
up Defra are they doing any more or are they just trying to cope
with what they had previously?
Ms Sanders: It is not a high priority
for Defra. The other issue with Defra is that although they have
perhaps expertise they do not have the connections on the ground
like the Foreign Office does.
Q11 David Howarth: DFID has connections
on the ground so that raises the question of how well do these
three ministries work together—Defra, DFID and the FCO—when
it comes to biodiversity issues?
Mr Buckley: I am not sure that
we have very extensive knowledge of the sort of interconnections
between them but I think that the general pattern is probably
patchy. We are aware of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Biodiversity
which potentially is a very powerful meeting point for those three
and perhaps potentially for other ministries and that would seem
to be the obvious way at the higher level, but you also need the
close working relationships at the day-to-day level as well.
Ms Sanders: I think there has
been a move to try and improve working relationships between the
three government departments for the UK Overseas Territories but
I think there is still room for a lot of improvement.
Mr Buckley: IDFID clearly does
have a biodiversity remit in the OTs. They do not elsewhere and
I suspect elsewhere the interactions between the three certainly
on environmental issues are probably fairly sparse simply because
it is not DFID's primary remit, although clearly they would acknowledge
there are links. Of course we would like to see the links more
explicitly recognised.
Q12 David Howarth: But they do not
do any better on other environmental issues than biodiversity?
Mr Buckley: I am not sure.
Mr Papastavrou: Just to give a
specific example about the inter-relation between Defra and FCO
with respect to the whaling issue, I think it is fair to say that
Defra do a good job when they actually turn up to the meetings
of the International Whaling Commission. They have appropriate
expertise, they prepare for the meeting and they achieve what
can be achieved at the meeting. Where the disconnect lies is the
work outside the meeting is not being done so there do not appear
to be very much in the way of lobbying efforts beforehand and
information-gathering and all the work that you would expect FCO
to do, so I think from the point of view of the issue that I most
closely work on, which is apparently a foreign policy objective
for the UK, in theory at least, there is not that kind of joined-up
thinking between the FCO and Defra.
Q13 David Howarth: Can we just come
back finally to the embassies issue which you raised. I think
the RSPB particularly raised the symbolic consequences of the
closure of the Madagascar embassy, and that is a particularly
striking case. I suppose the FCO response might be first of all
they are saving resources and that would free up resources for
other projects—environmental projects or biodiversity projects—and
that would be good and, secondly, they can handle this on a regional
or multi country basis so you do not need to have one ambassador
per country. How do you respond to those points?
Mr Buckley: I am sure we all appreciate
that the Foreign Office like everyone else has limited resources
and it has to do what it sees fit to do. My colleague will talk
more about this, I am sure, in terms of how this leaves to some
extent vacuums for other people. I think we have found generally
that we have very good relationships with embassies, they are
very helpful. We recently had fantastic assistance from the ambassador
in Indonesia again in respect of the other big rainforest project
we are involved in, who hosted a reception for us and so on, and
that was a very powerful vehicle to push the case for the protection
of the forest, so again when they do things they do them very
well and we have great assistance from them. I guess we quoted
the Madagascar example and Vassili mentioned a number of other
examples where closures have occurred in high biodiversity countries,
particularly places like Central America, and I think it just
reflects perhaps that if biodiversity was a strategic priority
you would take a different view about somewhere like Madagascar,
particularly at a time when the new government there has just
opened an embassy in Britain, funnily enough, but also it is very
open and really wants to right the deforestation wrongs of the
last few decades and actually work with countries like Britain
to help them to do so. It seems a particularly regrettable example
but I guess it is just one symptom of that. We do work very well
with embassies where we have particular projects. We should acknowledge
from Defra the Darwin Initiative which albeit a rather small amount
of money is a fantastic fund for our work and we have very good
links. Where we have projects we have had very good collaboration
from the embassies as well. Generally if it is not something that
is given to them as a strategic priority and if they do not really
have any funds to play with in terms of doing anything, then it
inevitably becomes a lesser priority compared with other things
in their countries.
Mr Papastavrou: Maybe just to
underscore the comment that I have already made in reading out
the letter from Kiribati, on the issue that I am working on we
are actually reaching a critical moment where Japan is about to
take over the International Whaling Commission. It has nearly
got—it maybe has—a majority of countries, so you are
looking in the case of Japan after a 15 or 20-year effort to take
over the Convention and we think it is the only time that one
country has virtually succeeded in taking over an entire Convention.
Then at the same time from non-whaling countries, and remember
the UK is just one of these, there is not even an effort to keep
a really small post going in one of these countries which would
take a very small amount of investment and the vote of a country
like Kiribati could be the vote that would tip the Whaling Commission
one way or the other. So although obviously this is only one of
many issues that the UK is concerned about, Kiribati has a vote
in other Conventions as well, as does Madagascar. The embassy
in Madagascar used to deal with The Comoros which are about to
join the Whaling Commission to vote with Japan, so again if you
do not have your representation on the ground in the country you
do not have the same level of influence if you just fly people
in for meetings and they then leave.
Q14 David Howarth: You mentioned
other conventions so the CITES Convention might have implications
for the enforcement of CITES and I think you mentioned the expansion
of it as well.
Mr Papastavrou: I just mentioned
the two Conventions that I am particularly familiar with. Yes,
I think you could probably generalise to all multilateral environment
agreements basically.
Q15 Chairman: We always refer to
the Foreign Office as the Foreign Office but of course it is the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Does the Commonwealth play any
role at all in these issues?
Mr Papastavrou: I would say it
should but it does not at the moment and a lot of those Commonwealth
countries are leaning further towards Japan than perhaps they
might on the whaling issue. I have not done the analysis to give
to you but maybe I should after I go home.
Q16 Chairman: I think it would be
very interesting to see that since you would have hoped that it
would really be the other way round, but there we are. Martin?
Mr Caton: Mr Papastavrou, you
mentioned ways in which the FCO has helped in your work with other
countries and you particularly mentioned the basking shark protection
matter. You have indicated that there is some reduction in interest
in the FCO but do you believe that it takes full advantage of
the potential for working with charities in delivering its international
objectives?
Mr Papastavrou: I would say that
it is very haphazard and variable and there are instances where
largely due to personal relationships with individuals we do fully
benefit from the FCO and I think they make full use of our expertise,
and I think this is essentially the same point that RSPB have
made, but there seems to be no overall policy to do that. From
our particular perspective there is one bit of the FCO that works
incredibly well and it is called the Maritime Team and they are
the people to whom we speak if we want help with obtaining research
permits for our vessel, and the relationship there is faultless.
I think it is a bit like being out there on a cloudy day and occasionally
there is a bright ray of sunshine and you see what could be happening
if there really was a clear objective to do it. That is what is
lacking at the moment.
Q17 Mr Caton: A possible new dawn
is perhaps the strategy that the FCO is developing at the moment,
potentially to deepen its involvement with NGOs and other groups.
You could all answer this. What would you hope to see come out
of that strategy?
Ms Sanders: In terms of the Overseas
Territories, what I would really like to see is the UK Government
taking its responsibilities seriously because these are part of
the UK; these are territories that want to remain part of the
UK. I would like to see the UK Government making sure that there
are adequate resources available for biodiversity on these territories.
I also think the UK Government has a role to play in strengthening
environmental legislation in the territories, particularly looking
at things like environmental impact assessments and strategic
environmental assessments. You will notice that I am talking about
the UK Government. We are not concerned whether this drive comes
from Defra, the Foreign Office or DFID. From whichever UK Government
department, whatever their role and responsibility, it should
be clearly defined and the territories made aware of what the
various responsibilities and roles are.
Mr Papastavrou: Your question
is a rather difficult one to answer. It may be difficult to answer
because, in my opinion, unless the environment is a clear foreign
policy objective, then just talking more to NGOs or having more
meetings with them will not necessarily help. In the past, when
we have seen that particular environmental issues have been a
clear foreign policy objective, we have seen a huge amount of
progress. Those interactions with the NGOs will form naturally
from that. I am speaking here on environmental issues with the
exception of climate change where that decision has already been
taken. It does not seem to have been taken yet on biodiversity
issues. I am not sure if I have made myself clear.
Mr Buckley: There is one other
matter that I could mention. Obviously we do welcome that dialogue.
We have recently had visits from our stakeholder manager. I would
agree with the last point. We would also like them to recognise,
in whatever partnerships they do form or whatever funding programmes
they might develop in the future, which we and others are able
to access, perhaps the importance of long-term partnerships. We
feel this point very strongly because we have been working with
some NGOs in developing countries for ten or 15 years. We have
provided them with support through that time and because of that
they have become very effective and relatively sustainable NGOs
considering the environment in countries in Africa. If it is long-term
funding, and projects and partnerships often tend to be boom and
bust affairs where something happens for two or three years and
then vanishes, I do not think that is the best use of resources.
Whatever they do, we would like them to do it for the long term
so that they recognise that people in a poor country or in the
Overseas Territories, if they are going to do effective projects,
will need salaries and people on the ground to do the work. It
is crazy to expect the Tristan Government with 280 people to have
the resources to employ staff to do all these things. It is very
important that people have resources to do the work and they need
to be supported in the longer term perspective as well.
Q18 Mr Caton: Keeping the focus on
the Overseas Territories and the point that you and Ms Sanders
have made about improving resources, it is argued that the UK
Overseas Territories do not have the capacity to deal effectively
with their environmental challenges. Financial capacity aside,
how might institutional and knowledge capacity be improved in
the territories to help address this?
Ms Sanders: There is a range of
ways. It has been very encouraging in the last couple of months
to see Lord Triesman's decision on the UK Overseas Territories.
Students now only have to pay UK fees to go to university in the
UK. That is a huge step forward but, at the same time, I think
we still need to remember here in the UK the salaries of people
in the territories. For example, a conservation officer on Tristan
earns £200 a month. Although he may want to come over and
study in the UK, he is going to need support to come over here
and do that. There are people out in the territories who would
like to be trained and to have access to university education.
Those opportunities need to be made available to them by the UK
Government. A lot of support could be put in there, for example,
by access to training, as I said before, and providing assistance
and support when you are looking at uninhabited territories. For
example, the UK has two World Heritage sites, Henderson Island
which is part of the Pitcairn Group, and Gough Island. These are
not inhabited territories but there is a lot of expertise both
in the UK and, if we are thinking about Gough Island in South
Africa, there is a lot of interest in supporting monitoring and
surveys and other work on those islands. It is just a question
of resources. One of the comments that came back from the Foreign
Office about the OTEP Fund was that the Overseas Territories do
not have the capacity to take on more projects. I do not think
that is quite correct. The capacity is there but more funds need
to go in to paying for salaried posts. At the moment, although
territories can access OTEP funds to support biodiversity conservation
projects, they are not actually allowed to use that money to support
salaries. Often the reason there are fewer projects submitted
is because territories cannot employ people to take those projects
forward on the ground.
Q19 Mr Caton: One clear improvement
would be if DFID or FCO directly funded environmental positions
in these places.
Ms Sanders: Yes.
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