SPECIES SURVIVAL NETWORK NOW URGES COMMITMENT
TO SAVING THREATENED AND ENDANGERED SPECIES
Washington, DC-The Species Survival
Network, a global coalition of wildlife conservation and animal
protection organizations (www.ssn.org),
applauds China's decision to include imperiled species such as the
giant panda and Tibetan antelope in their selection of the "Five
Friendlies" mascots for the 2008 Olympic Games. "The selection of these
species, so dangerously at risk of extinction in the wild, however, is
somewhat ironic in that China continues to be a major consumer of
wildlife parts and products from across the globe," noted Will Travers,
SSN President. "Today we call on the Chinese government to
make a firm commitment to reduce its wildlife consumption nationwide."
To its credit, China has stepped up
anti-poaching patrols and awareness campaigns in recent years to save
the Tibetan antelope, also known as "chiru." The international illegal
trade in the animals' wool, "shahtoosh," has led to a steep decline in
the population found across the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, from an
estimated 2 million at the turn of the century to around 75,000 today.
"Unfortunately," lamented Debbie
Banks of the Environmental Investigation Agency and Chair of the SSN
Big Cats Working Group, "this enforcement commitment has not
extended to all species including tigers and other big cats, whose
skins are smuggled across borders with India and Nepal and openly sold
and worn in Western China." New information suggests that
China is working to reopen the trade in tiger bone. "Such a
move would send out the wrong signal to consumers and to the criminal
networks engaged in the trade, fuelling further poaching in the wild,"
Banks added.
Similarly, China continues to be a
major consumer of bear parts including bile, gallbladders and paws.
While the "friendly" panda mascot is not implicated in this commercial
industry, nearly 10,000 bears including the highly endangered Asiatic
black bear languish in tiny cages across China, perpetually "milked" of
their bile. "The panda may be the symbol of China and its
Olympics, but the fact that black bears are cruelly confined in the
country and poached worldwide for their parts continues to be a blight
on the Chinese government," declared Adam Roberts, Vice
President of Born Free USA and Chair of the SSN Bear Working Group. "We
call on China to take immediate steps to make bear farming history."
Despite a global ban on the trade in
elephant ivory since 1989, Asia also remains a major market for ivory,
with China being perhaps the biggest link in the chain when it comes to
this illegal trade. Seizures of illegal ivory in China are vast, with
individual seizures often weighing over a tonne. "The Asian
demand for ivory is having an enormous impact on the poaching of
elephants," notes Shelley Petch of the Born Free Foundation
and Chair of the SSN Elephant Working Group. "Vulnerable
elephant populations in West and Central Africa are being hit
particularly hard by unrelenting demand. Between 2003 and 2004, a
single National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo lost 1,000 of
its rare forest elephants."
The Species Survival Network urges
the press to depict China's role in the wildlife trade accurately when
it reports on the 2008 Olympic mascots. These "Five Friendlies" must be
symbols of the need to conserve wild animals for future generations and
bring immediate attention, resources, and efforts to address the
pressing plight of threatened and endangered species across the globe.
Editor's notes:
- Further information can be found at
www.ssn.org
- The Species Survival Network
(SSN), founded in 1992, is an international coalition of over eighty
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) committed to the promotion,
enhancement, and strict enforcement of the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Through
scientific and legal research, education and advocacy, the SSN is
working to prevent over-exploitation of animals and plants due to
international trade.
- Tigers
There are fewer than 5000 wild tigers worldwide and poaching for demand
in China is bringing them perilously close to extinction. There is an
urgent need for targeted and cooperative enforcement between China and
India to crack down on the trafficking of skins.
- Bears
In farms across China endangered Asiatic Black Bears (Moon Bears) are
imprisoned for up to 22 years in tiny metal cages no bigger than their
own bodies. These bears are milked daily for their bile through rusting
metal, or latex catheters implanted deep into their gall bladders, or
via permanently open, infected holes in their abdomens, through which
bile weeps - known as the "free dripping" technique. The bears live a
life of torture before dying agonizingly slowly as a result of chronic
infection. In many cases the bears are missing limbs as a result of
being caught in the wild, or have paw tips and canine teeth brutally
cut back in order to take away their defenses and make them easier to
"milk" on the farms. Many also wear "full metal jackets", weighing 10
kgs or more, to cover the infected and weeping wound in their abdomen.
- Elephants
Research into the Chinese ivory markets (Martin and Stiles, 2003)
revealed China to be a major ivory manufacturing centre in Asia -
surpassing Hong Kong and Japan. Martin and Stiles additionally saw
9,096 ivory items in 117 different outlets. Examples of Chinese
seizures:
- 3,334.6 kg seized in Shanghai,
August 2002
- 2,613.5kg seized in Shangdong,
May 2001
- 2,446kg seized Hong Kong, 2003
|
