Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

I declare an interest as vice president of Birdlife International and of the RSPB. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, on her passionate words against the wild bird trade and I share many of her views on the conservation arguments. The trade threatens many species, while welfare standards for the birds concerned are appalling. Indeed, it has been assessed that something in excess of 60 per cent die somewhere along the very long chain from being captured in the forests where they should be flying and being transported across the land and sea and through the air before they even reach our shores and are quarantined. A large number then die in quarantine itself. It is a wasteful trade. For many years in my previous work with the RSPB and Birdlife International I tried hard to find a way to make this trade sustainable. I worked closely with many of the countries whose birds are taken for the European and global trade to find a means by which it could be made into a business that was both humane and could provide a living for the often poor populations living in the forests of the world. However, I have to say that we pretty much failed to find any way of establishing a sustainable trade. Many of the birds covered by the CITES regulation and about which information is available demonstrate that the taking of such birds is far from sustainable. The situation for those species not covered by the CITES regulation is completely unknown. We simply do not know what the taking of large numbers of such birds is doing to the populations within their own countries. Little evidence can be provided to support the notion that local populations should be able to make a living out of the taking of birds. Often the local trapper gets only a pittance. The money goes to the middle man and to those outside the country of origin of the bird. This is a wasteful and inhumane trade. While for 15 years we have tried hard to make it sustainable, we have been unable to do so. The opportunity now provided by the temporary ban imposed in Europe is one that I urge the Government to grasp with both hands. They should look in the face of the wild bird traders and see the practice as unnecessary. It is true that the European market drives the trade and that if there were no market for these birds, they would not be traded. Although there would be some illegal importation, it is far easier to catch illegal imports if no cover is provided by the legal trade. Evidence from elsewhere in the world makes this clear. In an uncharacteristically brave move, in 1992 the United States Government virtually banned the trade in wild birds by placing strong sustainability criteria on any imports. The belief at the time was that that would simply drive the trade underground and there would be much more illegal importation, particularly across the Mexican and other borders with South America. However, that simply has not been the case. The market has dried up, and while there is a limited amount of illegal trading, it is very small by comparison with what there was previously. So for once we have a model from across the pond that we would do well to consider. I hope that we can persuade the Minister, if not with this amendment but certainly with the argument, to use this opportunity to ensure that both here and in Europe the need simply to bring a halt to this trade is accepted. It feels a little like the slave trade in the past. It is inhumane, wasteful and demeaning in the modern world.