To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the environmental policy for bird protection on his Department’s land in Cyprus; (304188)

The provisions of the EU environmental legislation on the trapping of wild birds, contained in the EU Birds Directive, have been replicated within the Sovereign Base Areas through the enactment of the Game and Wild Birds Ordinance of 2008.

The Sovereign Base Area Administration (SBAA) has taken a policy decision to adopt all relevant EU legislation relating to the protection of the environment. The SBAA is also committed to meeting the obligations arising from the Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, and will introduce Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) next year.

The Sovereign Base Areas Police has mounted 64 operations and committed in excess of 3,900 hours this year combating illegal trapping. This has resulted in 56 arrests. The Sovereign Base Areas Administration works closely with the Game Fund of the Republic of Cyprus and NGOs such as Birdlife Cyprus to exchange information and combine our efforts to tackle this activity.

Education also plays a big part in the process, through school and community liaison visits, and particularly through our Environmental Centre at Akrotiri which receives in the region of 10,000 visitors per year, approximately 5,000 of whom are Cypriot school children.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of trends in the level of bird trapping through (a) liming and (b) mist netting on his Department’s land in Cyprus in the last five years. (304189)

The following tables provides the number of offences detected by the sovereign base areas police in each of the sovereign base areas over the past five years.