A Wanton Waste of Beauty?
A peek in the past at the enormous wildlife trade in Southeast Asia
First published nearly 20 years ago in Asian Geographic, this article highlights the staggering amount of live species - including reptiles, mammals, and birds - shipped to cities in China, South Korea and other countries. It gives us a glimpse of the recent past that foretells the future as the global coronavirus pandemic puts the focus on exotic markets and animal-human transmissions. Its relevance rings true even today.
After three soggy days of collecting nothing but insects, Alfred Russel Wallace-Charles Darwin's colleague and counterpart in Asia-became despondent over his arduous and ill-timed arrival in the remote Aru Islands of Indonesia. The next day his young servant, Baderoon, returned with a specimen that not only changed Wallace's outlook immediately, but also triggered the collective consciousness of humankind's emerging attitudes towards natural beauty and extinction.
Describing the new find twelve years later in 1869, Wallace recalled:
It was a small bird, a little less than a thrush. The greater part of its plumage was of an intense cinnabar red, with a gloss as of spun glass. On the head the feathers became short and velvety, and shaded into rich orange. Beneath, from the breast downwards, was pure white, with the softness and gloss of silk, and across the breast a band of deep metallic green separated this colour from the red of the throat."
Delighted beyond belief by its other ornaments-cobalt blue legs, spiral tipped tail wires, and emerald-banded breast fans-the rain weary naturalist pronounced the species as:
[O]ne of the most perfectly lovely of the many lovely productions of nature.
Rarely, if ever, seen live outside the wild for centuries among the Malay, Dutch and Portuguese voyagers, who came for the spice trade, the marvelous and enchanting specimen held by Wallace was the King Bird of Paradise. One of several species of moderate-sized birds in the region known for their ostentatious plumage and metallic tints, these flying forest dwellers were unrivaled in the bird world.
Obtaining a Bird of Paradise was one of Wallace's primary goals and prized collections, so much so that his travelogue narrative The Malay Archipelago was subtitled The Land of the Orang-utan and the Bird of Paradise.
Overwhelmed by "this thing of beauty" and contemplating the bird's existence with "no intelligent eye to gaze upon their loveliness," Wallace struggled to make sense of such "a wanton waste of beauty."
Further explaining the dilemma, he expressed sadness:
[T]hat on one hand such exquisite creatures should live out their lives and exhibit their charms only in these wild, inhospitable regions, doomed for ages yet to come to hopeless barbarism; while on the other hand, should civilized man ever reach these distant lands, and bring moral, intellectual, and physical light into the recesses of these virgin forests, we maybe sure that he will so disturb the nicely-balanced relations of organic and inorganic nature as to cause the disappearance, and finally the extinction, of these very beings whose wonderful structure and beauty he alone is fitted to appreciate and enjoy.
In the19th Century, Birds of Paradise were precious commodities-caught by mountaineers, sold to coastal chiefs and resold to Bugis traders. The concept of a threatened species probably never occurred to either the archipelago's wild bird traders or the learned biologists back in Europe; because, extinction was considered a fossilized, geologic record of past transgressions, not a living phenomenon observed in real time.
As we glide into the new millenium, it's obvious that Wallace's astute perceptions were at least a century ahead of conventional thinking.
Wildlife Menu
Today, the wildlife trade throughout Southeast Asia is rampant.
Whether continuing to follow age old practices of centuries past or finding new wild delicacies and trends to indulge in, the trade in live pets, dead animal parts, exotic foods and medicinal elixers is prolific and widespread. Tons of turtles are exported out of Sumatra each week to satisfy the tastes ofAsian consumers for food and medicine.
The trade in songbirds in and out of Southeast Asia is staggering with over 400 species and millions of specimens sold annually. Hunters in remote jungle villages in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam trap turtles and snakes to sell to middlemen connected with Chinese market demand.
The gall-bladders of sun bears, used to extract bile for medicines, find ready markets in South Korea and Japan, while bear meat consumption is on the rise in Indochina. Orang-utans smuggled out of Malaysia and Indonesia are held as captive pets for private owners and even serve, absurdly enough, as nightclub attractions.
Scarce populations of Javan and Sumatran rhinos remain under threat from poachers, who hunt them for their horns, only to be sold and sliced-up for Oriental medicines. Tusks of Asian elephants are eventually made into ivory carvings, tourist trinkets and fashion accessories, and tiger bone and skins continue to be popular illegal items despite the best efforts of conservationists and governments.
In the wild kingdom individual species rely on their limited advantages to survive the pounce of predators and disruptions of the ecosystem. Over eons, evolutionary progress allows for modifications in animal behaviour and slight, but improved, changes in physical attributes to carry on with the struggle.
But now the patterns of natural selection have given way to the peculiarities of human selection. Together with habitat loss, the frenzy of overzealous collection and efficiency of modern transportation to ferry wild goods to market are having a devastating impact on wildlife populations.
So how do you curb the appetites of consumers, satisfy the traditions of medicinal practitioners and conserve species for the next generation? Based on family experience and professional opinion, Chen Hin Keong, Southeast Asia Director of theTrade Record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce, or TRAFFIC for short, recognizes the dilemma:
It is a very fine balance between conservation and the ability to meet the needs of traditional health care, especially in countries where there are very few doctors and options are limited.
More to the cultural point, Chen observes that:
[E]very time a Chinese eats an exotic animal, it is not solely for food but a practice based on traditional beliefs for health or other benefits. It is part and parcel of our use of supplements in the diet."
Wildlife Traditions
Southeast Asia covers a lot of territory, a diverse array of habitats and climates and is one of the greatest geographic reservoirs of animal life known on the planet. Spanning east of the Himalayas, south of China and taking off the Malaysian mainland spreading eastward to include the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos, the region is awash in hundreds of mammal species, thousands of bird, reptilian and amphibian species and plenty of other forest or sea-dwelling creatures.
Southeast Asia is also crowded with people-roughly about 500 million-who have been hunting, capturing and selling the indigenous fauna for food, pets and ornamental objects for centuries.
Prolific wildlife product trading was recorded as far back as the 2nd century, when pearls fromVietnam were exported to China; the trade was eventually suspended to allow oyster beds to recover. The World Wildlife Fund reports that bear parts have been used in traditional medicine for over 5,000 years. The historical record, according to TRAFFIC, shows the earliest prescription for gall-bladders occured in the 7th century; tiger bone remedies with properties that "warded off harmful air, killing evil pathogens" and helped relieve pain date back over 1500 years ago.
For environmental groups, attacking wildlife trade issues is a combination of trying to grapple with the lack of sufficient knowledge about wild populations and bringing forth more awareness to the public and consumers. Reaching out to all generations, the Malaysian Nature Society conducts media campaigns aimed at educating people on the adverse impacts of trade on large mammals and marine turtles. Science Officer Stella Melkion explains:
It's hard to change the views of older Chinese who still believe in these kind of things, but now certain products are harder to get and are a lot more expensive. We are not against traditional beliefs, but people must realize how many animals remain, how much habitat is left and the impact of hunting, all of which are quite different from the old days.
But both the economics and the environment are different nowadays. The loss and conversion of forests to settle ever-growing human populations and their agricultural crops continue to reduce already limited habitats.
"In Sumatra the lowland areas are logged out, so now more mountainous species are being traded because as hill forests are cleared it opens access to poachers,” says Programme Officer Chris Shepherd of TRAFFIC.
Diminishing wild species are in higher demand from people in developed countries and newly emerging economic states throughout the region. Wildlife once considered primarily for local consumption in Asia now finds passage beyond traditional borders to Europe and America.
Just last year, as reported by the Associated Press, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service charged a Malaysian for smuggling an estimated 300 rare and endangered tortoises and lizards into the United States from Southeast Asian countries; and noted that the illegal trade in exotic animals is valued at six billion dollars a year.
The rapid depletion of wild Asian species may also be disasterous ecologically. Trying to evaluate natural population densities and subsequent trade impacts are impossible if field observations cannot be undertaken. Many exploited species are clearly in decline, verified by collectors' reports of less catch per time spent and higher rates paid out by exporters for dwindling supplies.
The Legal Landscape
On the positive side, there are adequate laws in place in most Asian countries to stem the tide of over-exploitation of turtle species and other animals. Besides national legislation, all countries except Bhutan and Laos are signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, better known as CITES. The latter, established in 1975, is the main legal tool used worldwide to ensure member countries are following a conservation code and practising protective measures to save wildlife and plant life from unsustainable international trade.
CITES puts the onus on individual nations and their citizens to protect the wild animals, plants and other natural attributes found within their sovereign borders. But CITES also recognizes the history of the wildlife trade and understands that "international cooperation is essential for the protection of certain species of wild fauna and flora against over-exploitation through international trade."
Thus, while intra-country trade depends on national requirements, the export, import, and re-export of the international trade of species listed in the CITES appendices is permitted, processed and packaged under CITES regulations.
To distinguish between the plentiful and the pathetic populations of wild species, CITES uses three categories to determine the degree of regulation needed to keep animals alive and well. These are referred to as Appendix I, II and III and each animal or plant that is suspected of being at threat is placed within the appropriate appendix based on biological and trade status.
To simplify:
Appendix I includes species "threatened with extinction and for which trade must be subject to strict regulation."
Appendix II pertains to species "not necessarily now threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade is strictly regulated."
Appendix III covers species that are regulated by national laws but require cooperation of other nations to prevent exploitation.
How does this highly bureaucratic international convention work on the ground level?
Of course CITES is dependent on each nation to set the tone of enforcement and pursue the protection of listed species with fervour. In reality, there are loopholes and shenanigans at play to circumvent the legalities and find illegal ways and means to move wild critters to demanding markets. Despite good laws, enforcement remains the weak link in the conservation chain in most countries.
Without proper training or manuals, customs officers cannot be expected to eyeball crates of crawling turtles and identify which ones are illegal native or alien species. Wildlife dealers are not stupid and take advantage of the situation by mixing wild species and mislabeling containers on purpose.
Even when smugglers get caught with large shipments of live animals, the difficulties just begin for the authorities, who have to find housing and food for the confiscated goods. Cooperative arrangements with rescue centres or non-government organizations to relocate animals are not easily made. And the issue of jurisdiction is always a potential hiccup since overlapping responsibilities of government agencies compete for priorities and funds.
Fines and penalties exist to punish trading companies and individuals who breach the law, but again their implementation is not in full force. Some conservation groups advocate that not only a portion of the fines be earmarked for enforcement efforts, but also that illegal operators pay to cover animal repatriation.
Trying to determine the best level of protection for individual species or whole groups of animals is not an easy process. Arguments must be made on both a technical and practical basis to ensure decisions do not become administrative nightmares with more bureaucratic tangles than bonuses.
Take the case of advocating that all turtle species worldwide be listed in Appendix II. This would help to overcome the inability of customs officials to separate out the illegal from legal species, as well as require all shipments to be inspected and accompanied by proper documentation. However, the opposing side argues that many species not involved in the food trade would also be included and that commercially farmed turtles would encounter unnecessary delays.
Conservation and TCM
The conservation battleground must be fought at all possible levels-biological, legal, enforcement, awareness, local and global. For turtles and tortoises the strategy targets everyone from airline companies to traditional medicine practitioners. To safeguard the increased tonnage of air freighted wildlife, International Air Transport Association guidelines, too often ignored, were updated with specific requirements for shipping live turtles. But public pressure exerted from airline businesses, environmental groups and other concerned parties is still needed to reduce turtle deaths.
To counter traditional thinking, conservation groups are working with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) scientists to verify age old beliefs. Current research suggests that there is no vital difference when using either the plastron or carapace bone. Other scientists are seeking to find alternatives to grinding up turtle bone by identifying herbal ingredients instead.
In addition pharmaceutical companies are being lobbied to check out the cancer-curing claims of certain turtle species to produce synthetic derivatives. The challenge to change old and stable traditions and introduce new alternatives is a daunting task, nonetheless, it may be the only chance to save wild species from ending up in the TCM pharmacy.
The focus on the fauna trade from a reptilian point of view is not necessarily unique, but it does highlight the difficulties faced by those working to conserve all animals affected by the overall wildlife trade. Public awareness levels are probably higher for the trafficking of mammal or bird species, such as tigers or cockatoos, but the magnitude and consequences of the turtle trade will certainly surprise many people.
Hopefully a sense of amazement or anger will translate into action to reduce consumer demand and the extirpation of wild populations. Many of the issues and problems discussed for the turtle trade parallel those for other heavily traded wildlife species.
So, let's take a look at the tigers, elephants, rhinos, bears and birds.
Asia holds the distinction of being the only place on the planet - not counting zoos or Las Vegas- where tigers prowl. But keep your pride in check because the 20th century alone witnessed the extinction of three subspecies - the Javan and Bali tigers of Indonesia and the Caspian tiger of southwest Asia.
Forests converted to make way for houses, highways and hybrid crops deals the most devastating blow to these widely revered creatures; but the substantial trade in tiger parts for traditional medicine is a major threat.
By crunching a few numbers we gain a quick perspective on the situation. Tiger specialists report that roughly 5000 to 7000 tigers roam in the wild.
Once captured, these magnificent beasts are sold as exotic pets or are sliced and skinned to provide luxurious pelts, potent penises, precious bones and teeth and claws for the curio market. Tiger slaughtering and processing for cures is an ancient practice used to combat rheumatism and other ailments throughout Asian communities.
Today, wildlife biologists count only about 150 individual tiger populations scattered from India to Siberia; potential consumers, on the other hand, measure in the millions.
Back during the Communist heyday, China stockpiled mountains of bones and layers of pelts sourced from campaigns to rid the hinterlands of pesky cattle-killing tigers. Decades later, these plentiful supplies have dwindled to molehill levels, thus giving rise to poaching activity to fill the demand.
According to the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Malaysia had a tiger population of 3000 animals in the 1950s, but only about 500 to 600 remain today. Dr. Dionysius Sharma of the World Wide Fund for Nature(WWF) Malaysia explains:
Since tiger habitats have been the same for the last twenty years or so, the decline in numbers suggests that poaching is more responsible than other causes. Most of the prime habitats for tigers and rhinos have been converted for agricultural plantations, so what remains now are only the mountains and foothills. The added impacts of poaching, plus the overhunting of prey species like boar and deer, cause significant problems for remaining populations.
Trade records from Malaysia seem to coincide with the decline, showing substantial exports of tiger bone from the 1980s to early 1990s.
Medicines with tiger bone, manufactured in Vietnam and Thailand, started to decline in recent years due to better enforcement and cooperation with TCM communities. But despite these gains the international tiger trade continues to flourish by the 'army ant' method - a steady stream of individuals smuggling small volumes across a variety of channels. Even with a fall in consumption rates, tiger poaching has not been reduced. The underground demand for medicines and tonics is a potent incentive for poachers and an ever increasing risk for wild populations.
The Wild Bird Trade
Birdlife abounds in Southeast Asia. Admired for their beauty and songs, wild birds not only attract tourists trekking through the forests and swamps, but also trappers, who supply the live trade market.
Bird keeping is an established tradition in the region, where indigenous cultures sell and buy songbirds and display the caged animals on poles to pierce the air with their signature sounds. Hundreds of bird species are either traded in local or foreign markets to satisfy the demand for pets, plumes and even food. Indonesia alone has a massive internal trade, possibly exceeding its exports, that escapes proper monitoring.
Besides trapping, habitat loss is the major contributor to the loss of some bird species, such as the Cerulean Paradise-Flycatcher; while others are in decline and have not been recorded for decades.
Despite the traditions and abundance of trade in wild birds, little is really known about the overall impact on specific species, especially those not protected by CITES. This situation is exacerbated by the lack of cooperation by dealers to release statistics and the lack of obligation for governments to collect data on the trade in non-CITES species.
Within Southeast Asia, Indonesia probably removes more birds from the wild than any other nation. In the 1990s, Hill Mynas from Java, Fruit-Doves from Irian Jaya and flycatchers from forests found their way to Singapore and Hong Kong by the thousands.
In short the conservation picture for wild birds is on hold until further notice. What is known is that the trade is large in scale and scope, and involves rare, threatened and protected species. Without better monitoring and controls, the chances of minimizing adverse impacts and preventing the local extinction of some species are slim. Trade and population data are needed to determine which species should receive greater attention and protection before their songs are extinguished.
Elephants And Other Targets
Best estimates by researchers reveal that only about 50,000Asian elephants remain in the region, with roughly half in India. Most of the rest are in Southeast Asia and are forced to settle in the hills and highland forests. Poaching of Asian male elephants to sustain the ivory trade has been ongoing for milleniums. Artists and craftsmen continue to carve tusks into both intricate objects of unique beauty and mass market jewelry.
International commerce in Asian elephant products, however, has been banned since 1975 when the species was listed on Appendix I of CITES. Indirectly, weak protection allowed poachers to over hunt male tuskers and upset the balance of natural sex ratios. Elephant herds require large areas that make it difficult to patrol, thus allowing ivory hunters a chance to frequent Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Malaysia to seek fragmented wild populations.
Despite their domestication for logging, tourism or pageants, wild Asian elephants are still part of the life and culture of many native range nations. And to further coexist with rising human populations, these large mammals must be zealously protected insufficient numbers to carry on their heritage for a few thousand years more.
Daggar handles represent an appropriate symbol for describing the trade in rhino's horn. The mass killing of both African and Asian species in the 1970s and 1980s left the planet with only 12,000 wild rhinos. But these bulky survivors of millions of years of evolution are fast disappearing from dense forests and swamps.
The illegal demand for rhino horn for TCM use throughout Asia and for decorative scabbards in North Yemen has driven rhinoceroses to the brink of extinction. Only two species occur in Southeast Asia, the Javan and Sumatran rhinos. In 1998, researchers reported that less than 70 Javan and less than 400 Sumatran rhinos remain, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Trade in rhino's horn or other rhinoceros parts is banned by CITES. Nonetheless, Oriental medicines containing ground horn powder are sold worldwide, and claims about their aphrodisiacal properties are usually false. Instead, the horn is mostly used as a fever-reducing remedy; though the rhinocerous penis can make a case for the former use. For the Javan rhino, the most endangered of all rhino species, time may run out before consumers realize the folly of their choices
The demand for bear bile affects all species, except the panda; and the trade in gall bladders has been particularly devastating to Southeast Asia's sun bear. The only tropical bear species, Indonesia exported over two-hundred kilos of bile extracted from some 7000 sun bears to South Korea in the 1970s. By1990, total bile production plummeted to only one kilogram. Whether this was a circumstance of limited demand or reduced numbers of sun bears is unknown.
The illegal wildlife trade is a product of culture, economics and curiosity. Humans will forever be searching for tonics and medicines for better health, for exotic foods and fo for fashion statements. Opportunists and businesses will always be on the lookout for the latest wild animal to be traded in whole or parts to customers around the globe.
In reality, what has happened is Alfred Wallace's worst nightmare.
Back in the 1800s, he was one of the very few who understood the consequences of unveiling the beauty of nature's fauna to the general public. Today, so many marvelous species are endangered and are in trouble due to humankind's inexhaustible appetite for the exotic and the unusual.
The dilemma faced by Wallace centuries ago, now belongs to everyone to decide.
[Photo Credit: By Andrea Lawardi - originally posted to Flickr as cendrawasih, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4559139]