China’s appetite for wildlife threatens many species
Many of the creatures that share this planet with us may not be around much longer.
Since 1970, populations of thousands of animal species around the world have declined 60 percent on average, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Habitat destruction, climate change and pollution are all driving those losses.
But so is the global illegal trade in wildlife. For species like tigers and rhinos, poaching is the primary threat to survival.
“Very few ecosystems are not affected by wildlife trade,” said Vincent Nijman, an anthropologist at Oxford Brookes University in Britain.
But, as Nijman pointed out, any solutions for tackling illegal wildlife trade are unlikely to work without the involvement of China.
From ivory to pangolin scales, totoaba bladders to shark fins, the country has a ravenous appetite for wildlife products. As China’s economy and population have grown, so, too, has demand for animals and their parts, which are sought worldwide: in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and the world’s oceans.
“A lot of the species that are most threatened on Earth right now are threatened because of demand in China,” said Chris Shepherd, executive director of Monitor, a nonprofit group that works Trafficking in prized wildlife products such as rhinoceros and elephant tusks and tiger bones is still brisk business in China.
to reduce illegal wildlife trade. “China has to become a leader in fighting illegal wildlife trade, or else it’s not going to be a pretty future.”
Until recently, China seemed to have signed on to the cause. President Xi Jinping, who has pledged to turn the country into an “ecological civilization,” stepped up seizures of contraband animal products and created a new national park to provide a haven for Siberian tigers. In January, Xi banned the domestic trade in ivory.
But lately China has sent conflicting signals. To the
shock of officials and conservationists around the world, China announced in October that it would reopen the trade in rhino horn and tiger bone, reversing a 25-year domestic ban.
“This development came as a surprise to us, because China, at the moment, is leading in so many ways on the environment,” said Erik Solheim, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program. “We should be stepping up protection for tigers and rhinos, not lowering it.”
Following a global outcry, the State Council this month
reversed course andpostponed implementation of the order. But the episode has left conservationists wary — not least because the history is far from encouraging.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as CITES, banned the international commercial trade of rhinos and most tigers in 1975. But for decades afterward, China permitted domestic sales of products made from these animals.
Rhino horn and tiger bone were smuggled into the country from abroad, and tiger farms were set up in the late 1980s — some with government backing — to breed big cats for bones, skins and parts.
In 1993, under the Pelly Amendment, President Bill Clinton threatened China with sanctions for undermining the CITES treaty. China responded with a ban on rhino horn and tiger bone, and poaching declined significantly.
But rather than close after the 1993 ban, tiger farms continued to grow and now house more than 6,000 captive animals.
In September, CITES identified 36 Chinese tiger farms that seemed to be involved in illegal trade or held tigers in questionably excessive numbers.
But at a CITES meeting in Sochi, Russia, in October, Chinese officials strongly opposed the findings, according to Heather Sohl, a chief adviser at the World Wildlife Fund who attended the meeting.
Officials did not mention the country’s impending decision to reopen trade.
Michael Sas-Rolfes, a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford who toured tiger farms at the invitation of the Chinese government in 2007, was not surprised.
“The Chinese focus has always been more on conserving a species as a resource, not on the Western focus of conserving a species in its habitat,” he said.