Lobbying before the Geneva meeting

The UK this week chairs a Cites committee meeting in Geneva, gathering member countries of the United Nations body that regulates the endangered species trade, where India's response to compliance worries over its animal imports is on the agenda. The Vantara UK ministers lobbying records, released under the UK Freedom of Information Act and obtained by the Guardian and Mongabay, show British government ministers were told not to engage formally with Vantara, the controversial mega-zoo run by the Indian billionaire Anant Ambani.

The Defra meeting and the ministerial note

The freedom of information lobbying files show that in May, officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) held talks with a Vantara representative and Checkmate Government Relations, a US lobbying firm founded by Ches McDowell, a hunting friend of Donald Trump Jr. Briefing papers indicated Checkmate wanted the UK to view India's handling of imports to the zoo more sympathetically, arguing that checking legality is mainly the job of exporting countries.

At that meeting the Vantara representative asked UK officials to come and see the zoo for themselves; Defra turned the invitation down so that the UK's role chairing Cites would stay impartial. Later, a representative of Atlas Strategy, working on Vantara's behalf, contacted the then environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, and the then nature minister, Mary Creagh, about a possible visit. When Reynolds sought guidance, officials issued a note recommending that ministers not engage with the zoo formally.

The zoo and the compliance concerns

Vantara is a private zoo near the Ambani family's oil-refining facilities in Gujarat, and it reportedly holds more than 150,000 animals gathered since 2022. Ambani, 31, stands to inherit the oil and gas fortune of Mukesh Ambani, one of India's richest men. The zoo points to high welfare standards, among them an elephant hydrotherapy pool where more than 260 elephants can receive oil therapies and Ayurvedic massage.

Conservation groups have asked repeatedly how the zoo assembled so many species, many endangered, in so short a time, though India's supreme court cleared its operators of wrongdoing last year. The issues before the Geneva meeting include:

• •A Cites fact-finding mission in 2025 raised concerns about whether India's animal imports meet international rules and proposed temporary restrictions, later withdrawn.
• •A November 2025 Cites report warned that facilities bringing in large numbers of animals could inadvertently build demand for illegally sourced ones.
• •Records show worries about a Vantara-linked application to import falcons and falcon hybrids after an unnamed organisation paid a £50,000 "donation" to an undisclosed UK breeder; UK Cites officials treated the case as commercial and no falcons were exported.

Vantara's response

A Vantara spokesperson said the zoo had imported no falcons from the UK and had neither hired nor paid any lobbying firm. Checkmate and Atlas Strategy are understood to have worked for Vantara pro bono, so neither needed to register with the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists.

Ambani told the Sunday Times that every animal he brings to Vantara comes legally, pointing to hippos rescued from a South African hunting lodge and jackass penguins saved from a shopping centre in Qatar.

A Defra spokesperson said the UK has strict rules to protect endangered species and keep the international wildlife trade legal and sustainable, assessing every application individually. After the recent scrutiny, Vantara has voluntarily paused animal imports for a year and brought in John Scanlon, a former Cites chief, to oversee its operations.