WildAid’s mantra, translated into Chinese, has permeated China’s
culture and society – a remarkable achievement in the mission to stamp
out the US$10b illegal wildlife trade. In this two part interview with
Peter Knights, WildAid’s Executive Director, I delve into what it will
take to win the race for new Chinese thinking.
WildAid’s mission
is to save endangered species that include elephants, rhino and tigers,
by ending the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetime. It is the only
organization with a laser focus on reducing the demand for these animal
products, and they do this through public awareness campaigns featuring
celebrity activists Yao Ming, Jackie Chan, Sir Richard Branson, Leonardo
DiCaprio, and many more.
Working on a shoestring budget, WildAid are leveraging well over
US$200 million in pro-bono media support, and reaching one billion
people every week.
The most recent reports on WildAid’s shark fin campaigns in China
show a demand reduction of up to 70% for shark fin soup, the result of
appealing to people’s humanity. Did you know that millions of sharks are
brutally killed each year for this soup? A third of all shark species
are nearly extinct, but we can help save them.
“The response to poaching crises has been to increase enforcement –
to escalate the war while only dealing with symptoms,” says Peter
Knights. “Demand reduction defunds the war and deals with the root
cause. If you hit the demand hard you break the back of the problem and
make enforcement more affordable for the future.”
Ivory carries more social status than shark fin soup, and ironically
Buddhist ivory carvings are seen as religious devotion. However a lot of
Chinese people still believe tusks are sourced from elephants that die a
natural death, while others believe elephants shed their tusks like
stags shed their antlers.
Fuelled by the country’s economic boom, China accounts for about 70%
of the illegal ivory trade, and there is obviously still a long way to
go. But progress is imminent, and Knights is encouraged by the Chinese
government being open to their citizens debating environmental issues.
“The big win so far is China carrying out the ivory crush
and admitting for the first time publicly that they had a problem. Hong
Kong followed and their top three retailers have pulled out of the
trade.”
China licenses 35 ivory carving factories and 130 ivory retailers to
sell ‘legal’ ivory obtained from the 2008 CITES sanctioned sale of ivory
stockpiles from four African countries. However some legal operations
have been caught out as fronts for smuggling, and other carving
factories are not licensed at all. Calls to shut down the factories and
distribution channels are routinely ignored in contradiction to the
ongoing confiscated ivory stockpile burns. But the future is unwritten.
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