Feature: As China pushes traditional medicine globally, illegal wildlife trade flourishes

China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings Co

28/03/2019 05:04

* Record HK wildlife seizures underscores demand for
threatened
species  
    * China, Vietnam huge consumer markets - conservation groups
    * TCM companies given permits for endangered species
products  

    By Farah Master
    HONG KONG, March 28 (Reuters) - Chinese traditional medicine
is rapidly expanding worldwide as a key pillar of the country's
Belt and Road initiative, but conservation groups say demand for
treatments using animal products is driving a surge in illegal
trafficking of wildlife.
    Since the start of the year, authorities in the Chinese
territory of Hong Kong have seized record volumes of threatened
species, including 8.3 tonnes of pangolin scales from nearly
14,000 pangolins and its largest ever haul of rhino horns, worth
more than $1 million.
    The former British colony is one of the world’s primary
wildlife trafficking transit points, supplying an array of
products including shark fins, tiger parts and rhino horn across
Asia and into mainland China. 
    "One of the most alarming characteristics of wildlife
trafficking is the growing use of threatened species in
traditional medicines," conservation group ADM Capital
Foundation said in a recent report. 
    It identified the traditional Chinese medicine industry as
accounting for more than three-quarters of the trade in
endangered wildlife products in Hong Kong over the past 5 years.
    China's State Council has outlined a multi-decade plan to
promote traditional medicine, including setting up hospitals,
museums, medicinal zoos and botanical gardens in countries
involved in its Belt and Road infrastructure rollout.        
    The industry is booming.
    Worth some $60 billion a year, according to a World Health
Organisation (WHO) Bulletin, and growing at around 11 percent
annually, according to IBIS World, practices such as acupuncture
and herbal supplementation are finding acceptance globally.
    The WHO says it will formally recognise traditional medicine
in its compendium in May, meaning more mainstream recognition of
practices dating back more than 2,500 years.
    While many practitioners have shunned the use of endangered
species, environmental groups say traditional remedies including
rare animals are still popular in Vietnam and China, where they
are used for a range of ills from cancer to skin blemishes and
hangovers. 
    Species including pangolin, rhino, saiga, sea horses, moon
bears and tigers are some of the animals critically endangered
by the trade, according to wildlife organisations.
    Zhou Jinfeng, Secretary-General of China Biodiversity
Conservation and Green Development Foundation, said the WHO
should take sustainability and science as preconditions for
incorporating traditional Chinese medicine into its compendium.
    "All medicinal treatment should be on the principle of 'do
no harm' to those using, or making it and to the species it
depends on; meaning in most cases no vertebrate should be used
within TCM," Zhou said, referring to traditional Chinese
medicine.
    Inclusion in the compendium did not mean the WHO endorsed
the scientific validity of traditional medicine, or that it
recommended or condoned the use of animal parts, a WHO spokesman
Tarik Jašarević said. 
    "WHO recommends the enforcement of the Convention on
International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora, which protects rhinos, tigers, and other species," he
said.
        
    TCM PLAYERS
    While Hong Kong does not typically manufacture traditional
Chinese medicine products, it imports them from the mainland and
a wide array, including pangolin scales, saiga horn and shark
fin, are readily available in the city's Western district.
    Hong Kong lawmaker Elizabeth Quat said preventing the use of
endangered animals in traditional Chinese medicine must happen
in the mainland. 
    "The Chinese government should do something. Manufacturing
is mostly in China. The government needs to stop the production
of it," she said. 
    In online Chinese forums, customers can buy everything from
African rhino horn to live young pangolins, also known as scaly
anteaters, and the powdered horn of saiga, an endangered type of
antelope found in Europe and Asia. 
    While the use of rhino horn is officially banned in China,
pangolin and saiga products are legally used in Chinese medicine
with the big traditional medicine companies all producing them.
    Companies including Kangmei Pharmaceutical  600518.SS  and
Tong Ren Tang  600085.SS  have been given permits by local
government bodies to produce medicines with pangolin scales and
saiga horns, according to corporate filings. 
    Gui Zhen Tang, which owns the biggest moon bear breeding
centre in southern China, has permits for extracting bear bile,
according to its website.
    China Traditional Medicine Holdings  0570.HK  last year
acquired Beijing Huamiao, a company it says holds permits for
the "processed products of some of the endangered and protected
wild animals”. It did not elaborate.
    None of the companies responded to multiple requests for
comment. 
    China's State Forestry and Grassland Administration and the
State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine did not
respond to requests to comment.
    Hong Kong's Health department said the city's Chinese
Medicines Board "has always been concerned about the balance
between the protection of endangered species and the use of
traditional Chinese medicine," and it would continue to observe
international regulatory trends and monitor the issue with
regard to endangered species.   
    Farming of animals used in traditional medicine has been
advocated by China's Forestry administration and some breeders
as a sustainable way to use endangered animals in traditional
Chinese medicine.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1Z82ZI
    However, activists say the use of farmed supplies of animals
such as tigers and rhinos risks enabling the laundering of wild
animal parts.
    Many treatments have already substituted herbal products for
animal parts, and practitioners say herbal alternatives are just
as, if not more effective.
    Lixing Lao, director at the School of Chinese Medicine at
the University of Hong Kong, said there was no need to use
endangered species.
    "Chinese medicine is part of the world," Lao said. "We take
care of the human health, the animals. If we use endangered
species, it damages our reputation."  

 (Reporting by Farah Master; additional reporting by Forina Fu,
Vincent Chow and Holly Chik;
Editing by Lincoln Feast)
 ((farah.master@thomsonreuters.com; +852 28431631 ; Reuters
Messaging: farah.master.thomsonreuters@thomsonreuters.net))