Saturday 7 April 2018

Europe's toughest ivory ban - introduced by the UK Government!

This week the Environment Secretary Michael Gove made the announcement that the UK will introduce a ban on ivory sales. The proposed ban will be the toughest in Europe and amongst the toughest in the world and will help to protect elephants for future generations. The move follows a consultation which had more than 70,000 responses with over 88% in favour of the ban. The UK has long been a global leader in the international fight against the illegal ivory trade. But over the last decade the number of elephants has declined by almost a third and around 20,000 a year are still being slaughtered due to the global demand for ivory- showing there is still more to be done. The UK recently called for EU member states to ban commercial trade in raw ivory- which is already banned in the UK- within the EU as soon as possible.


I welcome this announcement, which confirms the Government’s commitment to halting the heart-breaking decline in Africa’s elephant population in recent years. We need to leave our planet in a better state for the next generation, with stronger protections for animal welfare.