(CN) Boom takes its toll on endangered species

[Guest guest]

Even the death penalty has failed to curb appetite for rare wildlife, says

UN expert

South China Morning Post

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Reuters in London

Oct 04, 2007

 

The mainland's economic boom is fuelling demand for endangered species,

ranging from tigers to African timbers, even though Beijing imposes the

death penalty for wildlife crimes, the head of a UN watchdog said.

Growing affluence means that more and more Chinese are able to afford exotic

foods such as snakes and frogs or buy traditional medicines like tiger bone

wine, believed by many to help lower blood pressure.

 

" More and more people [on the mainland] get access to these expensive

foodstuffs, " Willem Wijnstekers, head of the secretariat of the Convention

on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), told an environment

summit in London.

 

" Both within China and in neighbouring countries there is a lot

disappearing, " he said.

 

" Africa is full of Chinese wood buyers and the forests are rapidly

disappearing in the direction of China as well. "

 

Timber is used both on the mainland and for exports, in furniture sold to

Europe and North America.

 

But he said the mainland had stringent penalties.

 

" They have the death penalty for wildlife crime and they have used it, " he

said.

 

" I'm not going to promote the death penalty for Cites but they really take

it seriously. They've got hundreds of people involved at borders. But [China

is] so huge. "

 

He said trying to stop wildlife smuggling into China was like trying to mop

up water from the floor with the tap running.

 

Mr Wijnstekers also criticised the mainland's tiger farms, saying farmed

tigers were unsuitable for Beijing's stated plan of helping to bolster

depleted wild stocks.

 

And many environmentalists fear the farms stoke an illegal domestic market.

 

He said Cites, which originally focused on protecting creatures such as

pandas or elephants, was likely to keep widening its efforts to protect

commercial species in a billion-dollar market.

 

Mr Wijnstekers said more South American and Asian timber species and more

species of sharks could be candidates for trade restrictions when Cites' 176

member nations next meet in 2010.

 

Despite worries about smuggling, he said he was likely to recommend that

China be accepted next year as an ivory importer alongside Japan, which is

currently the sole legal destination for a planned sale of African ivory

stocks. A vote on whether to let China import ivory will be made in July.

 

" If the Chinese this time were able to bid against the Japanese then the

countries allowed to sell could make more money out of ivory, " he said.