OpinionSafeguards needed as China lifts ban on rhino and tiger parts
- The decision by Beijing to allow horn and bone to be put to scientific and medical use has been fiercely criticised by wildlife groups
By virtue of its size, population, biodiversity and rapid development, China looms large on the global conservation agenda. But campaigners take defeats to heart.
Beijing has just handed them one, after decades of steady progress, in an effort to balance the interests of conservation with those of science and Chinese medicine.
The government is allowing scientific and medical uses of tiger bone and rhinoceros horn after banning them and their trade for 25 years.
Watch: China reverses 25-year ban on use of rhino and tiger products
Activists are deeply dismayed, despite promised safeguards against exploitation. They claim that with wild tiger and rhino populations at low levels and facing numerous threats, it will have devastating global consequences.
Margaret Kinnaird, an official for WWF, the global conservation body, believes there will be confusion among consumers and law enforcers as to which products are legal, and an expansion in the market for other tiger and rhino items, which should also be banned.
The national policy of promoting the role of traditional Chinese medicine was always likely to clash with conservation policies undertaken after China joined the convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
However, Kinnaird observed, rightly, that the decision seemed at odds with China’s leadership in tackling the illegal wildlife trade, including the closure of the domestic ivory market, seen as a game changer for threatened African elephants.