The recent trip to China was focused on the elephant ivory trade in that country. Since 2008 the Chinese government has decided to support and sustain the ivory carving industry. Ostensibly this is because it is recognised as an example of intangible cultural heritage. In 2008 62 tones of raw ivory was legally purchased from four southern African countries, under the auspices of CITES. The shipment arrived in 2009. In background terms the data we have suggest that illegal market in ivory has been growing for about a decade. So there is a lot of concern that about potential links between the legal and illegal markets.
As we were working in China, a side issue to our research did come to light. This is the efforts by some Westerners to research the black market. One tactic is to try to buy illegal ivory from ivory-dealers. (Mostly however, shops are visited to see if they are selling ivory legally or in compliance with regulations).
I’m really baulking at this 'buy illegal ivory' ploy. It took us two years of groundwork to get access to the Chinese ivory-market. The positive is we got superb access to all kinds of people and loads of good information. Imagining you can just drop into China and then start finding out what’s happening by trying to buy illegal ivory is hopelessly naïve.
The problem goes beyond this however. The first is the ethical dimension. Pretending you are interested in illegal ivory is a deliberate deceit. Now, whilst this is an important method to draw people out of the illegal market, it’s something that has to be done with a lot of safeguards. The typical buyer of legal ivory products is a mature, informed collector. It is someone who knows the differences in Shanghai, Guangzhou or Beijing styles. It is someone who can appreciate the differences in clarity, density and hardness of the ivory. It is someone familiar with the actual master carvers. It starts to become an absurd comical farce when Westerners pretend they’re a credible consumer. I was told of some appalling examples of this by dealers. They’re not being fooled.
If you haven’t done your preparation and background research properly then I believe, it is unethical to be posing as a potential buyer of illegal ivory. This is compounded by the risk of entrapment. The interest in buying ivory may cause the person to try to find illegal ivory for you. Again, this is murky ethical ground with potentially dubious consequences.
Not only is the ethics of this method that worries me. I’m also concerned that it can generate misleading information. Given the actual purchase cannot be carried out, the ‘potential buyer’ gambit cannot separate transactions that would:
1) use fake ivory (of which much exists) or
2) legal ivory brought from a registered retailer, and then resold with a markup to the ersatz consumer, or
3) illegal ivory from a genuine black-market source
If someone conspicuously ignorant of the ivory market is giving the impression they have more money than sense, selling them fakes is a pretty low risk way to make a quick return. Perhaps we should not be quite so surprised at "researchers" who find it so easy to get offers of illegal ivory in China.
My last peeve is it makes the work of others researchers harder. We did the ground work. Yet we encountered suspicion over our ‘agenda’ as a consequence of these blundering efforts. That meant information was being held back. It’s something that compromises research by people who do know what they’re doing.
Posts Tagged china
But is it research? Feb 03
No CommentsA tiger diversion Feb 01
No CommentsThe expedition to China was almost entirely focused on the trade in elephant ivory. This followed from the 2006 decision by the government to treat ivory carving as an intangible cultural asset, and the 2008 sale of ivory to China from Africa.
Not all the time was spent on ivory. We managed to squeeze in a short expedition to look at Siberian tigers (lao hu). China's northern most province (Heilong Jiang) reaches into the Siberian geographical region. And at -25 to -30 C, the evidence is very obvious.
Having the right contacts does make it easier. The -25 C temperatures though, add back some challenge :). Here's a couple of pics from the trip.
"Old Tiger"
"On Ice"
For those curious about the gear, these were actually taken with my Nex-5 rather than an SLR kit.
A farewell to China Jan 28
No CommentsLast day in China proper today, heading to Hong Kong this morning. It's an interesting country to do research in. It took us over 2 years to get access to the places and people we wanted to see. Trust is the first thing you need to work here. And the ability to decode some of the things you are being told :)
Tuesday #Travel – The beat goes on Oct 23
No CommentsThis shot was from Jilin in Northern China. Jilin is one of the tiger-smuggling hot spots within China, which is really just a product of its geography. It has a border with the Russian Far East (and includes a relic population of Amur or Siberian tigers).
On one evening we went 'cultural' and part of the performance was these traditional Chinese drummers.
Tuesday Travels Aug 14
No CommentsCyclist in the border-city of Hekeu (Jilin province). They don't seem to big on helmet laws. Or cap laws.
Is education making poaching wildlife worse? Mar 14
No CommentsIn the last post I mentioned that 'education' campaigns are an increasingly popular way to try to reduce demand for endangered species in Asia. The problem is that it's very opaque as to what they're achieving. My last post showed a billboard up in a small border town in Yunnan from before the Beijing Olympics. Species like tigers and elephants were targeted in these campaigns. In the late 1990s The ACAP (Active Conservation Awareness Program) was started, which showed graphic TC ads in Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Mainland China. This program has continued. Charismatic spokespersons- like Jackie Chan- were recruited into these campaigns.
So, why have these had so little impact on curbing demand?
Well, one major reason is that these are very broad-brush campaigns. As I've mentioned earlier, nobody has ever caught a final consumer of tiger-parts inside China. So education campaigns have to be broad-brush because we don't know what motivates these consumers and where they're located. And for that reason, it's quite easy to miss the target audience completely.
The second problem is more sinister. It comes down to the message that gets communicated. If we have a lot of people in China who really had no or little awareness that tiger-bone had a medicinal purpose, then these campaigns act as a constant reminder that does have an (alleged) medicinal function. They are made more aware that they could be taking tiger-bone medicines for their ailments. This would be a sad and perverse outcome of these efforts.
Ivory wars- conservation back in retreat. Mar 13
No CommentsThe recent Economist magazine had an article on the surge in elephant poaching now occurring in Africa. Much of the article covers familiar territory. Organised, well-resourced and competent international criminal conspiracies have upped the poaching pressure on elephants. And they pretty much have the initiative.
This threatens to return African elephants to the crisis times of the 1970s and 1980s, when poaching was rampant and extinction loomed for many populations. This led to an ivory trade ban, in 1989, and in turn to a collapse in demand for ivory.
– The Economist
Well, this kind of simplifies the story. The ivory ban was well-broadcast in advance and people were busy stockpiling ivory as fast as they could acquire it in Asia. This kept ivory prices accelerating until the ban kicked in. The bidding-war for stocks stopped and the price-bubble collapsed.
It did have a temporary benefit also of disrupting the supply-chain from Africa to Asia. Smugglers were laundering poached ivory into the legal stream as this was the least-cost route. As a consequence, they had to rebuild new supply networks. It bought some time for elephants.
In southern Africa, where there is relatively little poaching, support for lifting the trade ban is strong. But east African countries, especially Kenya, which led the original campaign for it, say this would increase demand for ivory, which would often be met by poaching
Of course, the interesting question is why there is little poaching in southern Africa. Poaching isn't a ubiquitous problem. Even during the 1980s as wild elephant numbers were plummeting, populations in southern Africa were actually growing. It seems you can achieve effective protection on the ground and this does hinder poaching.
And please, not the legal trade will increase demand argument. What happened to illegal alcohol producers in the US after prohibition ended. Did the legal trade increase the demand for illegal alcohol- or simply out-compete it to extinction. It out-competed it. Just as what happened in the crocodile leather market as well. Legal supply is a competitive force.
Yes, there are ways in which a legal trade can lead to more increased illegal traffic, but this isn't moderated by the demand-side of the market.
Let's point out that the last legal shipment to hit China from Africa was in 2008. One can hardly be surprised that prices are now on the rise and spurring poaching.
Yet if the trade ban is losing its force, what will save the elephants? Iain Douglas-Hamilton, the founder of Save the Elephants, an advocacy group, says educating Chinese shoppers about the bloody origins of their purchase would help.
And when law enforcement can't get the initiative back from poachers, what do we so often come up with. Aah, that's right, 'education'. Education has become that catchall phrase of what to do, when you really don't have a clue as to what to do.
I thought this shot (I took it on some tiger black-market work) would be appropriate. It's from China in 2008. That's 4 years ago. You can see elephants are one of the targeted species.
This was taken at one of China's smuggling hotspots- the border between Vietnam and Yunnan. There have been education campaigns running in these countries for years. I'm really unconvinced we have the means to shift demand by education, and dubious that this is the appropriate focus for anti-smuggling campaigns.
Some scenes from Hun-Chun Sep 14
No CommentsI was at a tiger conference in Hun-Chun (Jilin province) late last year. This is part of China that borders the Russian Far-East and North Korea and the area is sufficiently isolated, it's home to many of China's Amur tigers (or as is more commonly referred to in some parts of the West, the Siberian tiger).
One thing that quickly strikes you as you travel through China, is that it is a lot more diverse than people often think. Hun-Chun was a good illustration of that. The place was still too small to merit its own airport- we flew to Yanji and then had to drive to reach the place. Some of my fellow conference attendees remarked that customs in Beijing were bewildered when they were told where we were going. They'd never heard of the place. Still, we seemed to convince them it was a real place in China. I made up the name of some fictional hotel on my entry card. This was one of those kind of spontaneous trips where nobody actually told us where we were staying. The plan was just to fly to some remote part of China and see what happened next.
Hun-Chun turns out to have its own native Russian and Korean populations. So unlike say Hekeu where all the signs were in Chinese and Vietnamese, Hun-Chun was a very tri-lingual place:
My Hotel
The hotel's name was described in three languages- Korean, Chinese and Cyrillic. I guess that's also a good indication that tourists from the English-speaking world have yet to find it too.
This guy had a folding bicycle- helmet laws for cyclists seem non-existent in China.
Not entirely sure about this scene. The man is transporting two large dogs, one of which was definitely enjoying the ride.
I have a nagging feeling though that these may not be pets, but food.
The Dragon Connection May 23
2 CommentsOne of the most enduring human myths is that of the dragon. Large predatory reptiles have a way of gripping the human imagination that other threats do not. Thousands of people die from car accidents or the like and these are often overlooked by news reports. If someone dies to a crocodile or alligator attack however, this is often news that is widely reported globally.
There is a visceral fear of such creatures that may well have an evolutionary origin. Our early hominid ancestors would have cohabited river plains with large crocodiles. Just as people in such areas (usually with the Nile or Estuarine crocodile) still suffer attacks today. Fear of large predatory reptiles would be a vital survival instinct. Likewise, stories of heroes vanquishing such creatures (the ancient Egyptian God Horus slaying crocodiles) or St George & the Dragon are enduring human popular memes. Crocodilians morph into vengeful dragons under the impetus of legends.
In Chinese culture the linkage to dragons is more benign. The Chinese alligator is much smaller than the Nile or estuarine crocodile (its 2 to 2.5m long as adults, the estuarine can grown up to 7). The Chinese alligator didn’t predate on people (ducks sometimes though :) ). The benign link is connected to the bellowing of male alligators in spring time. As the weather warmed up, the males would start vocalising to defend their territories & make their presence known to females. For an agricultural peoples, this harbinger of spring (and the end of winter) would have been welcome. Indeed, neolithic people in China made drums out of alligator skins to mimic this bellowing (and of course, bring about Spring)[1].
The evolution of the Chinese character for dragon can be traced from the earliest Shang depictions (very crocodilian in appearance) through.
[2]
Similarly, the literary connection between dragon and alligator has been maintained. THe dragon is sometimes called the jiao (alligator) or jiaolong (alligator-dragon). In present day China, locals still call the alligator the tu long (earth dragon, as a consequence of its burrowing habits) or he long (river dragon) [3]. (These literary & historical roots show that some creationist claims that dragons were dinosaurs cohabiting with people are wild fantasies).
-
[1]Thorbjarnarson, J. and Wang, X. (2010) The Chinese Alligator: Ecology, Behavior, Conservation and Culture. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
[2] Ibid, p62
[3] Ibid, p63
Drummers from the HunChun Tiger Festival May 12
No CommentsA more traditional performance by women drummers at the tiger festival from last year
These are parts of efforts to celebrate the presence of tigers in the Jilin province and sustain support for their conservation.
Photos taken with a700 and 70-200/2.8 G lens.