Saluting the Animal World

Fish and wildlife populations in China may be about to experience some of their better days, with a consciousness of the need to better protect our wild cousins growing by the day in this animal-loving country.

This is why this year’s celebration of the 74^th World Animal Day on October 4 could be one of the most significant ever, even if all you hear of it is limited to a glib segment on the evening news.

Publicity about the need for animal protection is only expected to increase as animal protection organizations, both governmental and non-governmental (NGOs), find better ways to spread their animal-protection message. World Animal Day is a powerful ally in this effort.

This is not to say that China has only recently awakened to the need to protect our furry, feathery and scaly friends in the wild. To the contrary, the government’s efforts in this direction began in 1950, shortly after the People’s Republic was proclaimed, and its achievements have been remarkable. Laws have improved and have grown to be more specific and comprehensive. Increasingly, they are being enforced, and a slew of endangered species, including the giant panda and Chinese alligator, have been saved from the fate of extinction. Government-funded research and breeding centres are succeeding in their work and periodically release wild animals back in to nature. There are about 1,757 nature reserves, which preserve habitat for many wild animals, and which now occupy as much as 13.2 percent of China’s total territory.

But the picture is not entirely rosy. Poachers roam the Tibetan highlands and seem more determined than ever to pursue their bloody trade, especially by preying on China’s chiru (Tibetan antelope). Smugglers, ignoring even capital punishments and national borders, carry tiger bones, shark fins and antelope horns to their clients around the globe, who then re-package the animal body parts for use in soups of heavenly delight, faux medicinal potions and powders or as artefacts of pompous, conspicuous consumption. 

In today’s globalized world, the illegal wildlife trade has become international big business. The fur of a yak skinned in China can be found being sold to a highest bidder half a world away; the bones of a tiger hunted down in Vietnam or Siberia will be ground into powder and sold to urban consumers who get only a mythical benefit from such disastrous consumption. To protect wildlife under such circumstances requires international and inter-regional cooperation, a concept that all-too-often is heralded but poorly implemented because of conflicts in political agendas. 

Here is where the international NGOs have a serious, beneficial role to play. Their ability to operate almost anywhere on the globe allows these animal-protection activists to hunt down poachers in Sri Lanka, nab traffickers in Cambodia, or educate consumers in Hong Kong, all at the same time—something extremely hard for governments alone to do. 

All these activities require money. Nature preserves are a good idea, but they require desperately needed funding to provide local and international volunteers with the equipment they need to do their jobs, to pay for the preparation of forums and conventions and other activities. In other words, running an active NGO is not cheap. Global heavyweights such as WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and IUCN (The World Conservation Union) are some of the best-funded organizations, benefiting from generous institutional and individual-donor support, but even they never have enough money to do all they’d like. Some smaller NGOs are hardly heard from because of a lack of adequate funding, while some medium-sized NGOs are charting their own animal-protection and funding courses.

One such group is WildAid, a United States-based NGO working to suppress the illegal wildlife trade, but within “realistic economic parameters.” It recently set up office in Beijing as an operational base for ACAP, the Active Conservation Awareness Programme. Like WWF’s public education courses, its goal is to raise public awareness about the illegal trade in wildlife to dissuade potential consumers from participating in it. It has partnered with the J. W. Thompson advertising company and uses TV and print media to reach as broad an audience as possible. One of its ads features Olympic gold-medallist sprinter Maurice Greene who is shown outracing a speeding bullet to save a tiger from destruction. Another spot portrays a rhino inside New York City’s Grand Central Station with a caption, “You may not see it, but it’s happening every day.” Ads like these make statements that are blunt, even harsh, but they make demands on the public to take action, while leaving viewers free to find their own ways to help.

In addition to ACAP, WildAid has other operational plans for China. It recently signed a Cooperation Framework Agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Forestry, the default sponsor for most government-funded wildlife-protection programmes, in which both sides pledged to cooperate in the protection of wild animals and their natural habitat.

Teaming up with the CAF (Chinese Academy of Forestry), a government organization with extensive research capabilities, WildAid conducted a 23-day investigative trip in June 2005 in the mountain ranges of Sichuan. There they found that local residents are still using logs for fuel and heat, which is gradually destroying the forests that provide them their livelihoods. These same forests are home to a wide variety of wildlife including the leopards and protect the quality of water that flows into China’s lakes and streams. WildAid has offered assistance to local governments to promote the use of environmentally friendly stoves that could be used to replace the much less-energy-efficient traditional stoves.

All of this lies within “realistic economic parameters,” according to WildAid. Instead of being deterred by a lack of financial resources and grass root contacts (relative to WWF and other larger organizations), WildAid set out with what it had—support from private funds and its own devotion to its cause—and has achieved significant results by doing so.

For those who yearn to act on their consciences but who lament their financial ability to do so, WildAid and other medium-sized NGOs serve as examples that, as corny as it may sound, sometimes it is enough to start out on goodwill alone.  

For the rest, those who may be distracted by other concerns of life, compassion fatigue or simple apathy, October 4’s World Animal Day will serve to remind us that our animal friends, both docile and wild, need our support in whatever measure we can afford.