To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to the Under-Secretary of State's oral statement of 11 June, Official Report, column 1099, if he will make a statement on efforts to reach agreement to prevent the wanton destruction of mahogany. [4563]

At the recent CITES conference in Harare, the UK and other EU Member States voted in support of a proposal by the USA and Bolivia to list Swietenia macrophylla (Big Leaf Mahogany) on Appendix II of the Convention. The countries present voted in favour of the proposal by 67 to 45, but as at the 1994 conference, this was not sufficient to reach the two thirds majority required to add a new species to CITES. Instead, the conference agreed to set up a working group to protect mahogany from unsustainable logging.Earlier this week, at the UN General Assembly Special Session, the Prime Minister argued for an early start to negotiations on a Forest Convention as a means of progressing effective international action towards achieving sustainable forestry management.