Chinese walker

Global meat consumption is predicted to double by 2020. Much of this increase will come from China, where the growing middle class is demanding more meat and other animal products. As a result, China is now rushing helter-skelter down the path blazed by giant agribusiness corporations in western nations. Once, the animals we raised went out and gathered things we could not or would not eat. Cows ate grass, chickens pecked at worms or seeds. Then we ate their flesh, or their eggs, or drank their milk, thus adding to the amount of food available to us.

The protection of wild plants and animals is an important part of humanity`s work to safeguard and improve the environment. Of particular concern is the preservation and reasonable use of these resources in regard to the production of Chinese medicine. We place great importance on the sustainable use of sources of Chinese medicine, on the physical and intellectual-property protection of our national cultural heritage, and on how Chinese medicine can better serve humanity. In switching away from the use of less sustainable wild resources, artificial cultivation is a proven, reliable method.

The protection of wild flora and fauna and the development of Chinese medicine are closely related: the medicine relies heavily on wild sources of pharmaceutical ingredients, substances which come from animals, plants and minerals. The principles of Chinese medicine are applied to make these ingredients into a unique medical system which has made an irreplaceable contribution to population growth and disease control for the Chinese people. With people again coming to respect nature, Chinese medicine as a natural system of health care is attracting more attention. We should ensure that the medicinal culture we pass on is authentic and true to its roots.

My interest in China stretches back nearly thirty five years to my time working as a volunteer in a children`s home in Hong Kong in the early 1970s. It was then that I fell in love with Chinese language, history, philosophy and tradition and my life has been shaped by this ever since. I am a translator of Chinese classics such as the Yi Jing, the Dao De Jing and of Chinese myths and legends – for example about the Eight Immortals.

My interest in the environment goes back much further, to a mother who was passionate about nature and to the earliest days of what is now the world`s largest environmental organisation, the WWF, which I joined in its first few months as a schoolboy member.

It has been my fortune that I have been able to combine these two great passions and interests along with a third – that of the role of religion in contemporary cultures. I head the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), which is a secular foundation working with all the major religions of the world, helping them develop environmental programmes on their lands, in their forests, on their farms, through their investments, schools, media and as a result of their teachings, beliefs and practices. Founded eleven years ago, we work in more than 60 countries worldwide.

When we established ARC in 1995, one of the first areas where we were asked to work was in China, by the China Daoists Association. When we told people about this most of them looked at us with total incredulity. “You are trying to work with religion in China? Impossible. You want to help them engage with environmental issues in China? Doubly impossible.”

In the mid %26lsquo;90s, almost no one from secular groups outside China was working with religion in China and the environment was not an issue except with regards to cuddly pandas and a few other token species.

Today, the situation regarding religion has changed a bit. The World Bank, for example, now has a programme in Kunming with Buddhists, but the environmental situation has totally changed.

In the mid %26lsquo;90s, it was considered inappropriate to point out that the incredible growth of China and its consumerism, hunt for energy, building work and industrial expansion was taking place at the cost of the environment. A great deal of nonsense was spoken by those who knew no better about the “Confucian” world view in which progress was all, questioning authority was inappropriate and dissent unimaginable. Putting it simply, many outside China felt that China could never develop a home-grown environmental culture. For the business world, this was an excuse not to even mention it. For the environmental movement, this allowed them to tread so gently around the Chinese government that they never seriously raised any issues with the authorities. The result was a stand-off on these urgent issues which were simply put to one side as culturally insignificant, or inappropriate.

But religions in China, especially Daoism and Buddhism, were engaging with this and in powerful ways.

In 1995, the China Daoist Association (CDA) issued its first ever Statement on the Environment. This led to ARC being able to start work assisting the Daoists in putting into practice the insights, beliefs and values that this astonishingly powerful statement had spelt out.

Aided by ARC, the Daoists undertook a survey of their major sacred mountains. What this study showed was that because of the inherent sacredness of places such as Hua Shan, Tai Shan, Emei Shan or Qingqing Shan, these had survived in a better ecological state than comparable areas which were not considered sacred by the general population. This had proved to be effective, even during the worse excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Temples and shrines, statues and sacred books had been destroyed, but the mountains had still survived in a better environmental state than other areas. This has recently been confirmed by a study undertaken by WWF and ARC.

The joint CDA and ARC project also discovered that where the religious communities were still present on a sacred mountain in significant numbers, the protection of the environment was also better. Putting it simply, most park wardens clock in at 8am and go home around 5pm. The illegal loggers and poachers tend to come when the wardens are not around. On a sacred mountain, it is quite likely that a Daoist monk will be running up the mountainside at 3am or meditating in the middle of the forest at midnight. The active presence of religious people on a mountain helps to protect it.

In 1998, this study helped the management committee of Hua Shan to agree to return most of the temples on the mountain to the CDA in order, in part, to better protect the mountain`s environment.

The success of this work led the Buddhist Association of China to undertake with ARC a similar programme on their sacred mountains and the same conclusions were drawn about the importance of active life on the sacred mountains.

Today, these developments have gone even further. The CDA and ARC, assisted by the Dutch group EMF, have rebuilt a key temple on the sacred mountain of Taibaishan in Shaanxi, destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, as a Daoist Ecology Education Temple. Here, Daoists are being trained in environmental management of sacred mountains, environmental education for pilgrims and visitors and will develop information and education packs for use throughout China, but especially in urban areas. A set of wall posters on Daoism and Ecology have already been produced. In June this year a new network came into being, the Daoist Temples` Alliance on Environment and Education, designed to coordinate and develop projects across China through the medium of Daoism.

In Buddhism, a similar movement is under way with plans to develop a Buddhist ecology temple centre in Wutai Shan and to develop Wutai Shan as a model of integrated environmental management.

At the same time, ARC, in collaboration with WWF International, is developing a major programme on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and especially the illegal importing of Asian big cats` bodies to China for use in TCM. In 2001, Daoism made the use of endangered species in TCM an excommunicable offence. Building on this and on Daoist research into alternative TCM prescriptions which don`t use endangered species, linked to Buddhist prohibitions on using illegal TCM, we hope to make a considerable impact at the popular, folk-medicine level, as well as in curbing demand generally.

But perhaps the biggest development is one that no one, not even ARC could have foreseen eleven years ago. And this is the role that the government is asking the Buddhists and Daoists to play in making people aware and responsible for environmental protection.

China has awoken to the threat of environmental degradation in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. Gone is the blas%26eacute; notion that growth was all that mattered. The Communist Party now finds itself with a nation, hell bent on growth, on consumerism and with a corresponding loss of a sense of community and responsibility. Concerned with what the party has called “spiritual culture” – meaning higher values and a sense of wider responsibility — the religions have been asked to help reinstate a sense of a purpose beyond just self and consumerism.

Hence, in April this year, the Buddhist Association of China, in conjunction with the Chinese government, held a unique gathering of Buddhists from all over the Chinese world on the theme of social issues, and the environment was one of the key topics. Arising from this is a new range of projects and commitments by Buddhists across China to address issues such as deforestation, urban sprawl, waste, energy and moral values related to the environment. Next year, a similar forum will bring Daoists together, again to address these social issues.

What is going on?

Tiger bone wine (also known as “bone-restoring wine”) has recently appeared on the market in China. Does this mean that the 20-year ban on the trade in tiger bones has been lifted? This question has aroused great interest among animal protection activists in China and the rest of the world.

On August 25, China Youth Daily carried a report about tiger skeletons seen soaking in alcohol, and the resulting wine being sold, at the Xiongsen Distillery in Guangxi, southern China.

The Xiongsen Distillery is a subsidiary of Guilin`s Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Park, located in Pingnan county. It produces tiger bone wine and bear bile wine. The distillery has a storage capacity of 8,000 tonnes; it has already used over 400 skeletons from farmed tigers – and plans to expand. A company spokesperson confirmed that Xiongsen`s “bone-restoring wine” is indeed made with tiger bones.

Amazingly, the company`s sale of these products has been approved by the State Forestry Administration and Industrial and Commercial Bureau. But the wildlife conservation status that the two organisations have issued is written in English, and reads “lion”, rather than “tiger”. Perhaps this was meant to avoid international repercussions. After all, not many people in China would understand the English. Clearly, the company is aware of international sensitivity to the trade in tigers.

The plight of wild tigers is currently a great cause for concern. In July, a scientific survey found that tigers` habitats worldwide have been reduced by 40% over the last decade. China is home to only 50 wild tigers, any form of poaching or trade could quickly result in their extinction.

Tiger pelt seized in Thailand, October 2003

China`s many varieties of grassland cover an area of 1 billion acres. They account for 41% of the country`s total area, and are 3.3 times the size of its cropland. Yet these vast grasslands cannot feed the animals they are home to, which together account for one-third of China`s livestock. Many years of overgrazing have led to the deterioration of 90% of China`s grasslands, giving rise to environmental problems such as sandstorms.

Ecologists sometimes refer to the “10% rule”: that 10% of the energy of a primary producer should be passed on to a secondary producer. This means that under good environmental conditions, the world`s green vegetation totals about 200 billion tonnes (pure carbon), of which around 10% will be eaten by herbivorous animals. The dry weight of vegetation on China`s grasslands is 300 million tonnes, leaving about 30 million tonnes for grazing if the ecosystem were undamaged. But the methods currently used to calculate grassland capacity are flawed, and overgrazing is widespread. Actual numbers of livestock are far above even %26lsquo;theoretical` thresholds, and the grasslands have inevitably deteriorated. How can this pressure be relieved and the grasslands allowed to recover?

The answer lies not with the grasslands, but in China’s cropfields. Aside from producing 500 million tonnes of food, China`s 167 million acres of farmland also produce over 700 million tonnes of straw. Corn, wheat and rice make up 38%, 22% and 19% of the total straw, respectively. Other crops produce smaller proportions, such as legumes (4.8%), tubers (2.8%) and rapeseed (8.3%). Of this straw, 94.9% can be used as fodder. In fact, all of China`s straw could provide 22 times as much fodder as the grasslands can reasonably provide. And using technology to double the value of the fodder could feed all of China’s livestock.

Unlike on the grasslands, if straw is eaten by sheep and cattle it can be returned to the land in the form of manure or residue from biogas production. Not only will the land be unharmed, but it will also be fertilised. Livestock production should be moved south, from the arid grasslands of traditional herding areas in Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the food-producing provinces of Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Sichuan and Hunan.

China has 4.7 billion chickens, and an annual demand of 3.7 chickens per person per year. But farmers squeeze chickens into wire cages and overuse additives to fatten them up as quickly as possible. This makes them ready for slaughter in 45 days, as opposed to the 300 days of a free-range chicken. These unnatural meat-production methods are contributing to obesity in our cities. They are aiding the spread of avian flu that endangers food safety and public health, and are inviting criticism of China`s record on animal-welfare issues. The wide open spaces poultry need are not to be found in farmyards, much less in wire cages; the space is out on the grasslands. Chickens present no danger to the grassland, and can help control pests. In the future, the huge quantities of chicken and eggs that China needs should come from the grasslands.

Gir National Park hangs on the southern tip of western India`s Kathiawar peninsula, in the state of Gujarat. It is best known as the last refuge of the highly endangered Asiatic lion; all of the world`s remaining 350 lions live in the park. On March 6, reports emerged that three of the beasts had been found mutilated. Poachers had killed the animals deep in the park, but left their pelts behind. They had removed the claws, bones and skulls, all of which are highly prized as ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

Such tales of wild animal poaching would normally seem far removed from the streets of Britain`s capital. But they appear closer on a visit to the south London office of the Wildlife Crime Unit, where a vast haul of contraband – from stuffed leopards to jars of bear gall bladders – crowds every available surface. Here, the clandestine world that links criminals in India, China and London suddenly becomes all the more apparent.

“People make comparisons between this and the drugs trade,” says Andy Fisher, head of the unit. He indicates a black rhinoceros horn that was seized in a raid on a Chinese medicine shop in the capital. In 1970, over 100,000 black rhinos were thought to roam Africa. But poaching, driven by the demand for the horns – which are regarded as a fever-reducer in TCM – has reduced the population to around 2,600.

Fisher acknowledges that some similarities exist between the narcotics industry and the illegal traffic in endangered species, but continues, “There`s a basic difference, and that is that you can manufacture drugs, so you can control the supply.”

It`s a bleak picture of an increasingly globalised trade. “As rhinos become rarer, so the price of the horn goes up, which makes it more attractive to more poachers to kill more rhinos,” says Fisher. “The only way that you can stop that happening is to attack the demand for it, and the demand is generally in countries where you don`t get rhinos.”

And it is combating this demand that motivates Operation Charm, a project re-launched in November last year as a partnership between the Wildlife Crime Unit, the Greater London Authority and five international wildlife NGOs.

The initiative aims to tackle the trade in the world`s rarest animals – protected under the international CITES agreement – at the point of sale. It has principally targeted the selling of tiger, bear, rhinoceros and musk deer in London, and attempts to combine traditional law enforcement methods with partnerships in the TCM community and awareness-raising among consumers. One project, established with the support of the Federation of Chinese Medicine, encourages legal traders to advertise on their shop windows that they do not sell products made from threatened wildlife.

Operation Charm has targeted recent growth in London`s TCM industry, but where does this rise in sales come from – who buys medicines made from endangered species?

Not just members of the city`s Chinese community, says Fisher. In the past 15 years, the number of Chinese medicine shops in the capital has increased from around a dozen to almost 2,000, as a greater number of Britons seek alternative health products – outside of what some perceive as the empty materialism of western biomedicine. Fisher puts it succinctly: “Traditional Chinese Medicine has become trendy.”

This is in evidence where I live in east London; a handful of well-stocked Chinese medicine shops are within a five-minute walk of my home. I found no evidence that these establishments are selling any products made from rare species. And the majority of businesses do not. But with such a big increase in the overall market, concerns have been raised that the minority of businesses may sell such products may also be growing.

The message for the city`s consumers is a simple one: buyer beware. “The majority of people don`t think there`s an endangered species problem in this country,” says Fisher. “They think it`s all in Africa or Asia. But it`s here too%26hellip;there are people in London who buy endangered species products without realising.”

In December last year, an Operation Charm investigation led to the prosecution of a southeast London man who had sold products containing bear, seahorse, saiga antelope and musk deer. Other investigations have led to the seizure of tiger bone wine, wild orchids and products containing deer. And it`s a problem that shows no sign of decreasing, as booming customer demand drives illegal procurement overseas.

Luxury markets

Delegations from the 171 member countries of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of (CITES) recently met in The Hague. At the meeting, which ended on Friday, the Chinese government promised to continue strictly enforcing its ban on the trade in tiger bones.

In fact, the continued existence of tigers in the wild today is testament to the Chinese government`s decisive action, said professor Xu Hongfa, coordinator of TRAFFIC`s China programme, who attended the meeting. “Any relaxing of the Chinese ban on the tiger trade could push this endangered species to the brink of extinction.”

Historically, the greatest demand for tiger products has come from China, where tiger bones are prized as a cure for rheumatism. But it is medically proven that tiger bones do not have any unique medicinal properties, and can be replaced with other varieties of bone. The Chinese pharmacopoeia erased tiger bones from its pages long ago, proving that the government is correct in enforcing its ban.

But there are two sides to every story, and if the blanket ban on the trade is not complemented by other measures, obstacles to protecting the tigers may arise.

The destruction of south China`s wildlife habitats started about 1,000 years ago, and still continues today. This led to many animal extinctions and severe reductions in wildlife populations, and has been compounded by the use of wildlife for food and for ingredients in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

One might imagine that the pressure on wildlife would have decreased as levels of education and urban incomes have risen in the region. But the greatest reduction in wildlife consumption was actually in 2003, and came as a result of public fears about the risks of catching Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) from wild animals. In late 2004, the demand for civet cats decreased so much due to the fear of SARS that 141 farms released 4,000 of the animals into the wild.

Bird flu later added to this concern.

There is no need to recount the litany of China`s environmental disasters; catastrophes such as the blue-green algae that choked Taihu Lake appear daily on our TV screens and in our newspapers. Protecting our environment may today be the biggest challenge that faces humanity.

Many will turn to science for a solution. But reality demonstrates that relying on science alone will not lead to success. Unless we change our lifestyles, scientific advances will only accelerate damage to the environment.

It would take a day to fell a large tree in the past, and it would be months or even years before that tree was turned into processed wood and used to construct buildings in a far-off city. But now the lumber industry can flatten entire forests in very little time, and have the wood converted into floors and furniture in a matter of days. We do not have the respect and awe for nature that, in other times, held what little industrial capacity there was in check. The loss of this “superstition”, combined with the driving force of capitalism, has meant nothing now restrains us from using our technology to squeeze every last drop of profit from nature.

After decades in the forests of Africa leading pioneering studies on chimpanzees, famed British biologist Jane Goodall now travels more than 300 days of the year promoting care for people, animals and the environment. The Dame of the British Empire sat down with chinadialogue to discuss her work in China with the youth education program Roots %26amp; Shoots, which she founded in Tanzania in 1991. Here, she talks about working for peace; fairly traded coffee; Chinese hero biologists; and what it means to have your biography in Chinese school textbooks.

chinadialogue: On September 21, you were in New York in your role as United Nations Messenger of Peace. What does this position mean to you, and how do you use it to promote peace?

Jane Goodall: I was invited to be a Messenger of Peace because of Roots %26amp; Shoots. Roots %26amp; Shoots is very much about breaking down the barriers that we build between people of different cultures and religions – and between us and the natural world. I actually was planting seeds of global peace.

cd: You also lead and take part in the Roots %26amp; Shoots Day of Peace, where people fly giant homemade doves and ring bells made from recycled weapons to celebrate peace.

JG: We hope that Roots %26amp; Shoots Day of Peace is being celebrated in at least 50 countries of the world, if not more. There were giant doves flown by many groups in many parts of the world: up mountains; on the oceans; at tops of tall buildings – you name it. We want lots of people involved in celebrating the universal yearning for peace that is shared all around the world.