Western Morning News (Saturday)
China poses a big threat to wildlife
China’s crackdown on Hong Kong exposes wider issues,
IN a move true to China’s ruling Communist Party’s raison d’etre, a new security law has been enacted in Hong Kong, which punishes acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and foreign force collusion. It puts mainland China’s government completely in control of national security matters in Hong Kong. The 35 pages of legislation is allegedly very broadly worded and vague and, thus, the law is easy to abuse and difficult to apply.
This move has led to an international relations imbroglio. The US House of Representatives and the Senate passed a China-sanctions bill (the Hong Kong Autonomy Act) that would institute sanctions on banks that conduct business with Chinese officials involved in clamping down on Hong Kong’s prodemocracy protesters. The UK government offered about 3 million Hongkongers residency and then citizenship, and UK PM, Boris Johnson, accused the Chinese of breaching the 1985 Sino-British joint declaration.
The EU, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and Canada, inter alia, have also condemned the security law, with some offering Hongkongers their own form of assistance. As can be expected from a totalitarian state, China has, with unwavering hostility, hit back. It apparently “deplores and firmly opposes” the US House and Senate’s unanimous passing of the bill. In response to the UK’s offer, China has threatened to block the citizenship plan.
China’s disquiet notwithstanding, I believe the international condemnation of the security law is certainly justified, especially when considered against the background of the original handover agreement struck with the UK before 1997 – One country, two systems, and the special freedoms guaranteed for 50 years under this agreement. What is, however, disappointing is that our most universally vociferous denunciations are mostly confined to those for perceived human rights transgressions. Other sentient beings also deserve our unabated devotion and protection, especially now that we are amidst the sixth mass extinction event. Shouldn’t we simply treat other species with love, open-mindedness, reason and fairness? Shouldn’t humans pursue what is best about our nature? And shouldn’t we not only condemn Chinese human rights abuses but also Chinese appetites, which are decimating populations of some of the planet’s most iconic and endangered animal species (China houses the largest market for illegal wildlife products)?
Where is the visible, vocal and constant international outrage about China’s demand for lion parts, pangolin parts, and rhinoceros’ horn, for example? Until recently, many believed that Vietnam was the biggest consumer of rhino horn in the world but an investigation into rhino horn trafficking by a Los Angeles-based NGO, Elephant Action League (EAL), revealed that China, is the “black-market behemoth”. It found the future of the rhino almost solely depends on China enforcing its law banning rhino horn trading, and the international community applying pressure on China to stop the consumption of rhino horn.
And, is the demand for lion bones to manufacture traditional Chinese medicine not, at the very least, partly responsible for the decimation of wild lion populations via poaching and the preponderance of inhumane, captive breeding programmes? Over the last two decades the world has lost 43% of its lion populations, with between 23, 000 and 32,000 remaining in the wild. Researchers from World Animal Protection have reported the existence of “industrial-style” farms in China where emaciated lions and other big cats are housed in rows of 13-by-23-foot cells.
China is also the world’s biggest consumer of pangolin – scales and other parts. They are used in traditional Chinese medicine, their meat is a high-end delicacy, and their blood is seen as a healing tonic. Some of the 16 tons of pangolin scales, which China ‘imported’ from 1994 to 2014, were likely obtained from the estimated one million pangolins poached between 2000 and 2013. Perhaps, the pangolin will become extinct before most people realize it actually exists. Then there is China’s trade in tiger body parts, bear paws, bile, and gall bladders, hawksbill turtle shells, helmeted hornbill beaks, snow leopard skins, civet cats, king cobras, wolf skins and teeth, and corals.
We cannot continue to abdicate our responsibility to conservation NGOs. Can we afford to experience pangs of moral sensitivity only when we watch the occasional wildlife documentary or exposé? I would argue, no. An international action, at least as strident as the anti-security law response is needed to sanction the abusers and consumers of our shared, and mostly endangered, natural heritage.
■ Mario Du Preez is an environmental writer