Chinese medicine raising wildlife concerns

[Guest guest]

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va., Dec 17 (Reuters) - It is thousands of years old and

has

the power to cure what ails you, but its effect on wildlife gives

environmentalists the heebie-jeebies.

 

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, once the province of Chinese shop

owners

and Western hippies, has become a billion-dollar international industry in

recent years, offering cures effective enough to attract research dollars

from

modern pharmaceutical companies.

But wildlife experts warn that the healing art whose origins are said to

date

from the 3rd millennium B.C. is endangering growing numbers of the wild

animals and plants that provide ingredients for its treatments.

 

More than 20 years ago, environmentalists sounded alarms about the rampant

poaching of African and Asian rhinos for rhino horn, which is said to cure

fever and delirium.

 

Now the international body that oversees trade in wild species is

scrutinizing

a growing number of plants and animals affected by demand for TCM.

 

" Where years ago it was sort of a fringe thing, (TCM) accounts for close to

half the new species we look at, " said Susan Lieberman, a U.S. Fish &

Wildlife

official who sits on a scientific advisory panel to the U.N. Convention on

International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

 

CITES, a treaty signed by 152 countries, governs trade in more than 30,000

protected plant and animal species.

 

DEMAND FOR SIBERIAN MUSK DEER

 

Before wrapping up meetings in West Virginia last week, CITES officials

reviewed trade and conservation data on TCM-affected species from seahorses

and fresh-water turtles to Asiatic black bear and Indian cobra.

 

Lieberman's panel concluded that skyrocketing demand for the musk of

Siberian

musk deer from Russia and China may be unsustainable because of over

exploitation, poaching and the destruction of wild habitat.

 

Ninety percent of the musk trade is linked to TCM, which uses musk grains to

treat heart disease and other complaints.

 

CITES officials say demand for TCM products is being driven by economic

growth

in East Asia, particularly China, where development is rapidly destroying

natural habitats.

 

The fall of the Soviet Union also has brought lax regulation in regions

where

many of the animals range.

 

Estimates of the TCM market, from $6 billion to $20 billion, encompassing

China to Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia and the burgeoning Asian communities

of

North America.

 

Environmentalists are working with TCM practitioners and the Chinese

government to encourage herbal alternatives.

 

But with double-digit growth expected over the next several years, and

studies

on TCM appearing in Western periodicals such as the Journal of the American

Medical Association, experts say the threat to wild species is unlikely to

abate.

 

PRESERVATION MOVEMENT ENERGIZED

 

" Along with this has come growth in the use of wildlife species, " said

Ginette

Hemley, vice president for species conservation at the World Wildlife Fund.

" The big concern has been with species that are critically endangered. But

now

there are species that are not as yet critically endangered. "

 

A decade ago, illegal trade in tiger bones for TCM energized a preservation

movement that stamped out any suggestion of legitimizing trade in tiger

parts.

 

But animal activists are now concerned about farms that keep Asiatic black

bears alive in captivity for their bile, which is said to be effective

against

arthritis.

 

The Chinese government, which describes farming as a way to protect wild

animal populations, hopes someday to establish an international market in

bear

bile.

 

" If that were to happen, the wild population of bear species in China -

Asiatic black bears, brown bears and sun bears - would decrease as well as

populations in neighboring countries, " said Phil Wilson of the World Society

for the Protection of Animals. " In TCM, the bile of wild bears is

preferred. "