Response to interpellation 2022/23:174 on the trade in endangered animals
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
1 L argues that the government counteracts species extinction through an ambitious climate and environmental policy 1. 2 L considers that the current regulatory framework, where permits are required in accordance with Cites, is a wise way to handle the issue and that it is already forbidden to import endangered animals without a permit 2. 2 L emphasizes that Sweden is a strong party in international work to strengthen regulations against trade with endangered animals 2. 3 L suggests that Sweden should put forward a clear direction within the EU for stricter directives 3. 3 L argues that permits are required to import Cites animals and that the legislation should be reviewed 3.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Rebecka Le Moine has asked the Minister for Rural Affairs what measures he intends to take to curb the trade in endangered animals.
The work within the government is distributed in such a way that it is I who am to answer the question.
Let me begin by saying that the government, through an ambitious climate and environmental policy, intends to actively counteract species extinction both globally and in Sweden through the conservation of particularly sensitive species and natural environments, a sustainable agriculture, as well as fishing and forestry industries that continue to create environmental and climate benefits.
For zoos and other facilities that display animals publicly, there are detailed rules. All zoos must be approved by the County Administrative Board before they are put into use. If the facility displays animals of wild species, regardless of whether they are endangered or not, a separate permit from the County Administrative Board is also required for this. The County Administrative Boards are responsible for regularly performing inspections on all zoos in Sweden. If the facility includes species listed under CITES, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Annex A, a permit from the Swedish Board of Agriculture is also required to have an exchange with or be able to purchase such species from similar facilities. For species listed in Annex B of the convention, legal background must be verifiable.
It is important in this context to mention that the authorities' assessments for the permits I mention may differ regarding animals that are to live in a zoo compared to animals kept by private individuals.
There are, therefore, detailed rules regarding permits for animal parks. There are also several initiatives underway to strengthen the regulatory framework surrounding endangered and protected species. Among others, there are proposals in the report Protection of Species - Our Common Responsibility (SOU 2021:51) which has been referred and is now being prepared within the Government Offices.
Another question, which is currently being investigated in the Environmental Criminal Law Inquiry, dir. 2022:69, concerns suspected species protection crimes involving illegal trade with live animals where animals need to be seized. Such seizures are a prerequisite for an effective criminal investigation. However, the seizure of live animals is associated with high costs paid by the state. The costs can lead to animals not being seized, which in turn can have negative consequences for the criminal investigations and entail suffering for the animals and, in the long run, lead to more crimes. In order to meet the requirements in the criminal investigations, it is now being investigated whether the costs for the seizure of live animals can fall on the person convicted of the crime.
I will closely follow the preparation of the above-mentioned proposals.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the Environment for the answer. I am pleased that she will keep a watchful eye on these very important issues.
The trade in endangered animals and parts of various endangered species is the third to fourth largest illegal trade in the world. Often, this trade is very associated with and included in criminal networks because it seems there is low risk but large sums of money. It is therefore not solely a question of biodiversity but also a question of how we can tackle large criminal networks.
The CITES Convention means that no species from wild fauna or flora shall be subject to unsustainable exploitation due to international trade. And it is more than 180 countries that have signed the convention.
One might think that this has nothing to do with Sweden. But Sweden has begun to be considered a transit country for live specimens and products that are forwarded to other countries. Some exports occur from Sweden, both legally and illegally - some products from licensed bear but also illegally collected plants and bird eggs. About a hundred of the species that are on the Cites list occur naturally in Sweden. Cites rules also apply in cases where one has obtained these species through legal hunting or legal fishing.
I want to raise an example of how there are deficiencies in Swedish legislation regarding the CITES rules. We have just had a license hunt for wolverines in Sweden, which Miljöpartiet strongly opposes because it is an endangered species that is also included on the CITES list. Through the license hunt on wolverines, we have attracted foreign hunters here for a trophy hunt. The fact is that when the decision was made on hunting wolverines through license hunting, the hunters were also allowed to keep the skin. The license hunt has become a trophy hunt that truly attracts foreign trophy hunters who are allowed to take the skin and sometimes even the skull home.
We sell hunting of red-listed, protected, and Cites-listed species such as wolverines, even though one is not allowed to sell the skin. People can pay 250,000 kronor, come to Sweden, shoot this animal, and take the skin and the skull home with them. That we sell trophy hunting on Cites-listed animals is a loophole in the Cites legislation.
My question to the Minister for the Environment is: Do you intend to ban the sale of trophy hunting to foreign hunters of protected wild animals that are CITES-listed?
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! Now there is a somewhat odd distribution of responsibility that can be difficult to reconcile. I also had to inform myself about this in connection with this interpellation. But the responsibility for questions concerning animal welfare in zoos, in addition to questions concerning hunting and specifically also license hunting, lies with the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Infrastructure and thus also with the relevant ministers there. But the responsibility for questions concerning the work with, for example, CITES and the special permits required to, for example, handle wild animals and endangered animals lies with me as Minister for the Environment. Therefore, questions about licensed hunting are best answered by the minister who has responsibility for hunting issues.
I would like to return to the important question of how we ensure that we care for, take care of, and protect the species that we have in Sweden and which are vulnerable. We are fully engaged in handling the report on the protection of species that has been referred and is now being prepared within the Government Offices. This report was presented in June 2021 with two main assignments, partly to review the species protection ordinance with rules on protection and other matters, and partly to improve the conditions for the work of preventing, detecting, and prosecuting specifically species protection-related crime. This report will hopefully be able to serve as a basis for a development of the work that Sweden does from the state's side specifically to protect our species.
In the committee directive for the investigation, this specifically regarding species protection-related crime was included as a second part of the investigation. We are currently preparing the proposals in the report, and we will hopefully be able to ensure the development of the policy being pursued in this area.
In addition to this, there is also the Environmental Criminal Law Inquiry. Unless otherwise indicated, both the inquiry and other material presented in this area suggest that several of us have identified that there is a need for a development regarding how we handle particularly vulnerable species that require additional protection. Therefore, a development in this area can certainly take place, and we are currently looking at the proposals that have been submitted in the report. But we also look forward to the proposals that are to be presented in December 2023 in the inquiry on specifically environmental criminal law.
Based on this, we hope that the investigation can, among other things, contain proposals on how we should prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute these violations in a better way, as there is certainly such a need.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the Environment for the answer.
I am pleased that the government is looking at these inquiries with open eyes, even though they were appointed by a previous government. They are very important inquiries, even if the inquiry on environmental crime is more focused on environmentally harmful waste and does not have to do with exactly this issue. It is, however, important in itself to deal with the economic crime that lies behind it.
It concerns me, however, that a division has been made between hunting and CITES, because it is very difficult to talk about CITES and how we can curb the trade in endangered animals if we do not consider hunting and hunting legislation. One example is that one can travel to countries in, for example, Africa and purchase a complete arrangement where one is allowed to shoot endangered animals. It could involve elephants and other large animals that are important in the ecosystems there.
What is truly distressing is that one from the importing country, that is Sweden, can obtain a permit to import the trophies here. I think this is morally reprehensible, and here we truly have the opportunity to put our foot down and say that we see no good basis for making exceptions from Cites just because some wealthy trophy hunter from Sweden wants to go to Africa, shoot elephants, and perhaps take an elephant foot home to have as a decoration.
The government could actually, through clear directives, say that we do not allow the import of endangered animals listed in CITES. It is an opportunity to lead the way that exists for all countries that have signed the CITES guidelines, and several other countries have done this. I think it is very embarrassing that Sweden still allows this type of import. According to CITES, 1.7 million trophies were registered internationally over a ten-year period, and it has been established that 200,000 of them were from endangered species.
There are also very problematic boundaries between what is legal trophy hunting and what is illegal trophy hunting. One example of this is the case of the lion Cecil in 2015, which received a lot of international attention. There, a hunt was offered where the lion was driven out from a protected area in Zimbabwe, and once the lion had crossed the border, it lacked protection. The lion was shot with a bow and arrow and then suffered for ten to twelve hours before he died. Afterwards, the head was chopped off and became a trophy.
I think the entire concept of trophy hunting of endangered animals is something we would need to leave behind. There, Sweden could take its responsibility by simply not letting the Swedish Board of Agriculture issue exemptions from CITES, just as several other countries have done. My question to the Minister for Environment is therefore whether one intends to look at the possibility of banning the import to Sweden of trophies that come from endangered animals.
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! It may be that it is Member Le Moine who in a motion has put forward a proposal to, for example, give Tullverket increased powers in the handling of CITES species. It is absolutely something that can be considered.
Under the current regulatory framework, it is however prohibited to transport endangered animals and plants, as well as products of such animals and plants, across Sweden's border without a permit. That such permits exist and can be applied for is perhaps not what Customs regulates in itself, but that we have a regulatory framework where a permit is required to import animals and species is a good thing. It is about being able to regulate the whole thing.
Say, for example, that one were to remove the work that takes place through the permits – then there would simply be no regulation at all other than that it simply should not exist. The question is whether it would have the desired effect or if, on the contrary, it could even have a negative effect. Now, the situation is that a permit was needed and that those permits shall be granted in accordance with the regulatory framework prevailing in Sweden, which includes the regulatory framework for Cites. I think that is a wise way to handle the whole thing: We simply forbid, in accordance with the regulatory framework in Cites, anyone without a permit from importing certain species of animals and plants as well as products of animals and plants of this kind into Sweden.
In addition to this, it can also be mentioned that the Swedish Customs Service has a very large amount of work to do, so to speak. They work with very many different priorities, and the larger priorities being addressed today concern drugs and weapons. It is also something that can be addressed in a consideration regarding the development of how we manage the regulatory framework for Cites in Sweden and how we ensure that we manage in the best possible way the ban on importing endangered animals and plants as well as products of such animals and plants.
I also want to mention the importance of the international work regarding this, which is very robust. A lot is happening all the time concerning CITES in various ways. At, for example, the CITES COP 19 meeting in Panama, work was done on strengthened regulations against the trade of endangered animals, and at all those occasions when Sweden participates in various EU working groups and other forums, it acts as a strong party, together with the entire EU, for better regulations and to be able to better manage the developments regarding the trade of listed animals and plants. The Swedish delegation participates very actively in the development of how we handle these issues, and it should, of course, continue to do so.
There are, therefore, many proposals on the table regarding how this trade can be countered in different ways, but it is important to mention that it is already forbidden to do this without a permit. It is a strong start for Sweden's part.
Rebecka Le Moine (MP)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for the answer.
I find it a bit difficult to keep up when the Minister talks about this matter of permits. A permit is a piece of paper and something that the Swedish Board of Agriculture can issue, but it must be based on a political will and a political decision. There are other countries that have said that, because they have a political will, they have decided not to allow the import of trophies of lions and other endangered animals from Africa.
It is a bit what I am looking for: Is there such a will on the part of the Minister for the Environment, or does the Minister for the Environment think it is completely okay that wealthy trophy hunters in Sweden are granted an exemption from CITES to import elephant feet, hides, and other items that have belonged to endangered animals? We will later also talk about the global nature agreement, and these animals would really need stronger protection rather than increased hunting. What I am looking for, therefore, is an answer to the question of whether there is even such a will or understanding that we need to regulate the import.
Since then, I am very grateful that the Minister for the Environment took up my motion that we also need to provide funds and resources as well as give instructions to the Swedish Customs Service. Within the EU, we have something called the internal market law, which is intended to promote free movement and trade. There, they correctly prioritize, as the Minister for the Environment mentioned, checking that drugs, weapons, and other items cannot pass through just anywhere—but the CITES-listed species are not on the list. This means that whoever has successfully entered the EU finds it very easy to move within the EU with these products.
My question is: Is this something that the Minister for the Environment would like to look into, i.e., how one can upgrade the CITES lists to the same level as drugs and weapons?
Statsrådet Romina Pourmokhtari (L)
Madam Speaker! I do not believe this is the last time we will discuss how we best protect our species in Sweden. As has been said, there are preparations being handled within the Government Offices, and from these, a management plan will of course be published.
In addition, it is important that Sweden, in international contexts as well as in the EU, puts forward a clear direction where we better protect our species and that we set sharper directives for what occurs between our countries in the EU. However, there are no such proposals from our side now. A permit is needed to import animals covered by CITES into Sweden, and that is a good start. Then we simply have to see in the best way how we can develop the legislation concerning the protection of animals and the species affected by this.
So there are no such proposals now, but there is a development in how we handle these issues. In light of the preparation taking place in the Government Offices, there will be more announcements on how we, from Sweden's side, can best handle the potential species protection offenses or other things that may occur in Sweden.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.