The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 4th June 2025:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to tackle the illegal wildlife trade; and what assessment they have made of the links between the illegal wildlife trade and financial crime.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab, DEFRA): £30 million has been invested between 2022 and 2025, including through Defra’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund. To date the fund has supported 179 projects in over 67 countries, including projects to change behaviours, strengthen wildlife crime legislation, and help communities to protect the wildlife they rely on for their livelihoods.
Domestically, UK Authorities, including the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU) and UK Border Force, work closely together to combat illegal wildlife trade. This includes through joint enforcement operations (e.g. Operation Thunder), intelligence sharing, and the identification of enforcement priorities.
In 2021, the Home Office commissioned an independent assessment of illegal wildlife trade and financial crime in the UK. This is available here(opens in a new tab). This was followed by the first illegal wildlife trade risk assessment by the NWCU in 2022 – https://www.nwcu.police.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Initial-Risk-Assessment-of-IWT-Public-Version.pdf(opens in a new tab).
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the risk posed by the illegal wildlife trade to emerging infectious diseases.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock: Most recently, Defra funded an assessment of the zoonotic potential of trade in species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – https://hub.jncc.gov.uk/assets/964ae259-410e-4205-8ec7-e2c54f5c6e3d(opens in a new tab). This assessment was developed in conjunction with a study by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre – Study scopes potential of global wildlife trade to harbour zoonotic disease – UNEP-WCMC(opens in a new tab).
The UK also has in place robust measures to support our ability to understand, detect, prevent, respond and recover from disease outbreaks. This includes established systems to monitor for new and emerging biosecurity threats such as our Veterinary Risk Group (VRG) and the Human and Animal Infections Risk Surveillance (HAIRS) Group.
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