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| Home > Issue 15 > Preliminary efforts by WCS to respond to the wildlife trade in China |
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Preliminary efforts by WCS to respond
to the wildlife trade in China
Zhang Mingxia
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) China Program
Border guards on patrol to keep an eye on
transboundary illegal trade.
Wildlife consumption in China has been considered a major threat to global biodiversity. In recent years, growth in both the population and the economy have accelerated the depletion of wildlife populations.1 The government and several NGOs have endeavoured to understand and slow this trend for a long time, through steps such as market surveys,2,3 wildlife consumption awareness surveys and public awareness-raising.4 The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has focused on the protection of endangered species and their habitats since it was established in 1895. The wildlife trade in China has increasingly become a concern of WCS because the trade threatens many species in WCS project sites. It is not cost-effective, or even feasible, to protect animals in the wild unless the consumption demand decreases. To respond to the increasing wildlife trade in China, WCS began to conduct many trade-related activities. These included market monitoring and public-awareness raising for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), capacity-building in transboundary areas, and public-awareness raising in the main consumption sites of wildlife.
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One of the illegally-traded
species
(Manouria impressa) |
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Protecting TCM resources
China has a long history of including wildlife in medicine. More than 1,500 animal species have been recorded as TCM, among which 50 are Class I state-protected species and 110 Class II. About 5,000 plant species have been involved in TCM. The China Plant Red Data Book (1993) contained 388 threatened plant species. Of these 77 species (20%) are commonly used in TCM. To increase conservation awareness among TCM practitioners and the public, and to maintain sustainable development of TCM, WCS conducted the Asia Conservation Communication Program (ACCP) under the support of the United States National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). Starting in 1996, it was the first protection programme conducted by an international organization located in China aimed at reducing peoples' consumption of wildlife in TCM. Since 1997, the WCS-ACCP Program has conducted 20 symposia in over ten cities, aimed at appealing to TCM practitioners to play a role in protecting these resources. Based on the papers in these symposia, WCS published Resources of Chinese Materia Medica and Conservation of Endangered Wild Animals and Plants in 2000 and 2004 respectively. The meetings have boosted communication between TCM experts and wildlife conservationists, and explored a better environment for TCM development. WCS also supported Professor Zheng Hanchen of the Second Military Medical University to publish a Study of Natural Medicinal Herb Resources in 2003. In the book is a chapter describing protection of medicinal resources. This was the first time wildlife protection was included in TCM teaching materials. This can promote conservation awareness among TCM students. During 2007-2008, WCS supported six small-grant projects in southwest China. Most of these focused on wildlife used in TCM, such as a turtle market survey in Chengdu and a survey of Saiga (Saiga tatarica) horn clinical prescriptions.
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These two proceedings
were published to
encourage TCM
practitioners
to play a role
in protecting wildlife
resources. |
During 2006-2008, WCS implemented the project "Protecting Southwest China's Wildlife Used in TCM" under the support of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). In the project, we promoted conservation awareness among the public in southwest China through conservation actions spread by TCM practitioners. The main achievements of the project include: (1) setting up a Sichuan professional committee for wildlife TCM conservation and usage. All the committee members are experts in TCM, and they take charge of updating the endangered TCM wildlife list. (2) Printing a TCM protection newsletter. The Sichuan committee has published two issues of the newsletter (http://www.baohu.org/read.php?tid=7781) up to now. (3) Compiling information on endangered wildlife. (4) Supporting research on substitutes for TCM. (5) Running public awareness campaigns among TCM college students in Sichuan and Yunnan province, including the distribution of wildlife protection pledges and signs.
Besides conservation awareness campaigns, WCS also conducted a survey about Saiga horn in the TCM markets. This survey was conducted from February 2006 to February 2007. Surveys were conducted in 14 provinces, and covered a total of 262 shops in all 12 of the best known TCM wholesale markets, 195 TCM retail pharmacies in six large cities, and 10 border ports. For each retail and wholesale market investigated, whenever Saiga horn was encountered, the following information was collected by interviewing shopkeepers:
(1) the form in which it was available; (2) its price; (3) its origin, if this could be ascertained; (4) the quantity for sale; (5) the type of customers and where they came from. Over 3,000 Saiga horns were seen in the survey, the price ranging from US$500 to $2,500/kg5. From the findings, WCS put forward suggestions about conservation of Saiga and submitted the report to the Protection Branch in the State Forestry Administration, to help them take effective management.
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