Pigeon Racing – Just Harmless Fun?

Last summer, a story appeared in the New York Times that could have come straight from an episode of “Only Fools and Horses”. Just swap Peckham for Shanghai and cast two Chinese guys in the roles of Del Boy and Rodders.

Before the story begins, and in case we didn’t know, we need to understand that to start a pigeon race, the pigeons are transported hundreds of miles away from their lofts. When they are released, their instinct is to fly back home, and it’s the first to reach its loft again that wins the prize.

Right, the stage is set, and the action begins summer 2018, when these two guys decide to enter four birds into the annual Shanghai Grand Prix Race. They come up with the ingenious idea of giving their birds two home lofts, one in Shanghai, the race’s end, and one in Shangqiu, the race’s starting point.

The plan is, when all the pigeons are released by race officials in Shangqiu, their four birds won’t (and don’t) like the rest of the birds in the race, fly the hundreds of miles back to Shanghai. Instead they head straight back to their second and nearest home loft, the one in Shangqiu. Our two geniuses simply collect their birds, hide them inside milk cartons, and smuggle them on to the bullet train that connects the two cities.

Disembarking from the train in Shanghai, the birds are re-released and flap their way back to the Shanghai loft they call home. Needless to say, the four birds beat all the opposition by a long mile, and are declared outright and extraordinary winners of the prestigious race with its $160,000 prize.

The Trotters would have been in their element. You can just hear Del Boy saying to Rodders, “This time next year we’ll be millionaires!” But in this Chinese version, the jubilant smiles are soon to fade.

Even over a long race such as this, pigeons can fly at a phenomenal 80 mph. At that speed, the average race time between the two cities is about 8 hours. But the fastest of avian flyers can’t come close to the bullet train’s top speed of 200 mph. And the train only takes 3 hours 15 minutes to make the same journey.

Mmm. It’s not going to take a genius to work out pdq that in the birds’ record-shattering win the maths doesn’t quite add up. And the other competitors were no slouches working out the sums. If only our guys had thought to stop off somewhere for a leisurely lunch on the way back to Shanghai!

But this story, amusing as it is on the surface, leaves a bad taste. Because in truth…

There is nothing funny about pigeon-racing

After the Grand Prix race, to hide the evidence of their fraud, the two men destroyed their four innocent birds.

Here’s another “extraordinary story” passed on to a reporter for the BBC by one of his colleagues: “She [the colleague] used to live next door to a pigeon fancier. One day his winged competitors returned from a race, but one refused to re-enter the loft; it perched on the house roof, out of reach of its owner who wanted to register its ID from the tag on its leg.

“A simple solution was at hand, in the shape of an air rifle. He shot the bird and collected its corpse to complete his race record.

“‘You made that up,’ I accused. ‘No I didn’t,’ she replied.”

The reporter was wrong about one thing – the story is not “extraordinary” at all. On the contrary, it is all too familiar.

In Belgium, the historic home of pigeon racing and still the epicentre of the pigeon fancier’s world, competition birds can be worth thousands of euros, especially as certified winners. And over the last decade or so, the hobby’s popularity has spread like a contagion across the Far East, particularly in China, the Philippines and Taiwan. Last month a Chinese buyer “spent a record 1.25 million euros ($1.4 million) at an auction for Belgium’s best long-distance racing pigeon of all time.”

Put those facts together, and this is what you get –

Crime and Cruelty, Cruelty and Crime

Belgium

In one incident, a Belgian national noticed two men who looked ‘Asian’ dumping black bin sacks in some woods. The sacks turned out to be full of pigeon corpses, each with one foot cut off – the foot with the identity tag.

“The Royal Belgian Federation of Pigeon Fanciers has suggested that Chinese criminal gangs are behind a growing number of robberies. Rather than attempting to smuggle their prey abroad, criminals will kill the pigeons and cut off their identifying rings to be used on much less valuable birds bred in Asia.”

“It is really an epidemic, a true plague,” said Pierre De Rijst, president of Fédération Royale de Colombophiles Belges. “All they have to do is fit the stolen identification rings in China onto a bird worth a fraction of the value, which they then pass off as an ace racer.”

The Philippines

When a race is on, people like to shoot the pigeons out of the sky, just for fun. Others string fishing nets across the mountains to catch the birds – then sell them on to would-be pigeon fanciers for a fraction of their monetary worth. (In the world of pigeon racing, a bird with no monetary worth has no worth at all.)

The UK

2 million pigeons are bred and raised by the UK’s 43,000 pigeon fanciers every year. Thousands of the birds are killed as ‘unsuitable’ before they even get to race. PETA filmed pigeon-fanciers weeding out “slow-flying birds and snapping their necks before tossing them into the bin.”

Taiwan

“Money—not just entry fees, but vast illegal wagers—fuels the multibillion-dollar pigeon-racing industry. Wealthy racers pay upwards of $100,000 for imported breeder birds, and top flyers admitted to making millions on a single race. The chance to win staggering sums leads to extortion, drugging of birds, and kidnapping birds for ransom.” 

As if all that weren’t enough, after a race pigeons may be killed by their owners if they fail to make the time needed to qualify for the next race in the series.

And then there are the races themselves – even worse than the deadly Iditarod

The Alaskan Iditarod dogsled race calls itself “The Last Great Race on Earth”. Since it began in 1973, 150 participating dogs have died. Deaths are so routine that officials consider them “unpreventable”. Many others are injured, or end the race with permanent lung damage. Many many more are bred and then killed if they don’t reach racing standard. (Read more here)

But the stats for losses in major pigeon races are off the scale. Take the prestigious MacArthur Race in the Philippines: “It is a brutal 600-kilometre gauntlet during which competitors face searing heat, wild seas, vicious predators, and the threat of kidnapping.” Only 1 in 10 pigeons that start the race makes it back. 

In Taiwan, “the birds, who are released over treacherous open oceans and have to fly hundreds of miles to reach land, are often swept underwater by waves and drown, or fall victim to extreme weather, raptors, electric lines, foul play, disorientation, or exhaustion—or, if they return but finish out of the money, their necks are typically broken.” In Taiwanese pigeon races, only 1 in 50 of the birds survive, 98 out of 100 die.

A Taiwanese fisherman describes the scene of horror he witnessed: “It was raining pigeons – literally. I’ve never seen such a scene. Every one of them crashed. Some crashed on to the boat, some crashed into the ocean… About one hour after the pigeon rain, you could see the whole surface of the ocean filled with dead pigeons.”

Here in the UK it is no better. Pigeons pair for life. They ‘kiss’ affectionately, and both care for their offspring. The fanciers exploit this fidelity by deliberately “widowing” a pair. They use the stronger male, who will fly back fast to his mate, in sprint races. Not in longer races. In longer races, the male is inclined to forget his mate back home and seek new love elsewhere.

The females on the other hand, never stray from their one soulmate, and even over long distance races faithfully fix their sights on home. This steadfast devotion is rewarded by making them the natural choice for the longest, cruellest races, such as the Barcelona International, in which they are forced to fly up to 900 miles to reach home. The final deadly barrier is the English Channel, referred to by those in the pigeon racing world as “the graveyard”, because it swallows up such huge numbers of exhausted birds. Only 1 in 10 make it back. Then, if they’re not going to be of use for future races, their owners drown them or break their necks.

“Millions of dollars fly in this business, but the pigeons are always the losers” – PETA

A pigeon’s worth?

Cock-fighting, badger-baiting and hunting foxes with hounds are rightly banned in the UK as barbaric activities having no place in the modern world. Every life is precious and every animal death for human ‘sport’ an unnecessary tragedy. But it seems we care much more about badgers, foxes and cocks (and the Iditarod dogs) than we do about the racing pigeons, whom “many people consider to be no better than flying rats.”

Who gets to decide what the life of this gentle, intelligent creature is worth?

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Take action for UK racing pigeons here

Take action for Taiwan’s racing pigeons here

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Sources

The deadly odds of pigeon racing in the Philippines

Belgian pigeon fanciers accuse Chinese mafia of killing racing birds to steal ID bands

Is pigeon racing cruel?

Their Racing Pigeons Caught a Bullet Train. Then the Authorities Caught Up

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Predicting what’s in store for Nature in 2019

Cover photo: Endangered Steller Sea Lions VLADIMIR BURKANOV / NOAA

If the 6th Age of Mass Extinctions we have now entered as a result of our own activities, sees off the human race along with all the other species on the planet, our epitaph might read (should there be a handy alien around to carve it in stone) “They thought theirs were good ideas at the time ….”

In The Magnificent Seven, this was the answer Vin (Steve McQueen) memorably gave to Calvera (Eli Wallach) when the bandit was so puzzled why a man like Vin decided to take the job of protecting the lowly villagers from his pillaging gang: “It seemed to be a good idea at the time ….”

In that instance, things turned out well – mostly. But so many of humankind’s bright ideas that did seem good at the time, have in the longer term proved to be runaway nightmares.

Thanks to modern science and technology we can now design babies to our own requirements; engineer mosquitoes to make themselves extinct; make drones used by conservationists and poachers alike; construct slaughterhouse equipment that make it possible to slaughter 175 hens per minute;

choose custom-made dogs in different patterns and colourways; and grow human organs in pigs. We can move mountains, and I mean literally. There is no end to our inventiveness.

Is there anything we can’t do?

For all our cleverness, when it comes to gazing into the crystal ball to foresee where our handiwork might be leading, our talent is zero. Our remarkable human ability to turn every bright idea into concrete reality is matched by our singular inability to predict where those bright ideas might take us. Perhaps we are just eternal optimists, blind to any possible downsides.

Whatever, that blindness has sadly brought us to a point where 26,500 endangered and critically endangered species of plant and animal find themselves on IUCN’s Red List, thanks entirely to us.

Endangered: the California Condor, the Great Frigate bird & the Whooping Crane

Take that once-bright idea very much in the environmental spotlight recently. That material without which life as we know it is unimaginable. Plastic. Invented 1907. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. So useful it’s insinuated its way into every nook and cranny of our lives: from swimsuits to spaceships; cars to clingfilm; windows to wipes; aircraft to astroturf.

Plastic certainly has always seemed not just like a good idea, but a brilliant one. This ultra-handy substance managed to sneak well passed its centenary before we woke up to precisely what we’d let loose on the planet. How were we to know?

Futurology – the science of anticipation

Enter the futurists, those whose task it is to gaze at that crystal ball for us and forecast what kind of world new developments are propelling us towards. More than two dozen of these horizon scanners have got together with environmental scientists – William Sutherland, professor of conservation biology at Cambridge University at the helm – to put their collective finger on which emerging trends are likely to make an impact on Nature and biodiversity in 2019. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that they are hedging their bets on the outcomes of the trends they’ve identified, conscious that any one of them that seems like a good idea right now, may have unintended, unwanted, or even unforeseeable repercussions.

Emerging Trend for 2019 No. 1

And heyho we’re back to plastic

Remember when yellow plastic ducks first started washing up on beaches across the globe?¹ The thought of these tiny bath ducks ‘escaping’ and navigating the vastness of the oceans seemed no more than an amusing story at the time. There were actually 28,000 of them out there, a whole container load, lost overboard in the North Pacific in 1992. “That flotilla of escaped plastic ducks joins millions of Lego pieces, sneakers, styrofoam insulation, plastic crates and a plethora of other items lost at sea.“  It’s reckoned that containers lost overboard every year number in the thousands, and many of them filled with items made of plastic. Items that never even get to be used. A single container can carry 5 million plastic shopping bags.

Add that to the colossal amount of plastic we humans continue to actually use and throw away, and we have one enormous problem. We use 300 million tons of plastic each year, and at least 100 million marine mammals, a truly horrifying figure, are killed each year from plastic pollution.

After all this time, we’ve finally woken up to the environmental devastation our love of plastic has wreaked, and the trend the futurists identify is: people coming up with solutions.

An obvious one is to re-use plastic trash to produce something else we need. An ingenious professor of engineering in India has come up with a highly original use of plastic waste: turning it into hard-wearing, long-lasting roads.

“To date, thousands of kilometers of highways in India have been paved using the process he invented.” 

Another approach is to make plastic plant-based and biodegradable, and NatureWorks based in Minnesota, is doing just that. Their eco plastic ‘Ingeo’ is already in use in everything from 3D printing, through building construction and landscaping, to food packaging. Here’s how they do it.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation is proposing a more fundamental shift – an economy based on better design, manufacture and recycling. At present we run on a linear economy – buy something, use it, throw it away. Some of our plastic trash does get recycled, but each time it is recycled, it becomes less and less usable. The Foundation would like to see a circular no-waste economy where items such as cellphones are designed and made so that at the end of their useful life they can be easily broken down into their component parts (glass, plastic, metal) ready to be recycled into equally high quality goods.

“Yay!” we say. All these ideas are impressive, aren’t they? But our futurists are cautious, unwilling to come down off the fence on one side or the other. Because how can they be sure that years down the line, we will not be repeating that refrain, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

As the futurists say,“From changes in recycling approaches, to the use of biological agents to degrade materials, to the manufacture of substitutes for conventional plastics from plants, [which as of now only makes up half a percent of all plastic produced] all alternatives will have ramifications of their own for food security, water use, ecosystem integrity and more. Not only that, but the promise they offer — whether it’s realized or not — could defuse other efforts to reduce rather than shift plastic consumption.” 

NatureWorks though is in the early stages of a process to make biodegradable plastic straight from greenhouse gases without even using plants. Can this be anything but good?

And surely the futurists will applaud this brilliant idea from TerraCycle. It’s called Loop, for obvious reasons, and it’s based on the manufacturers of goods retaining ownership of containers and packaging. The consumer buys the products inside and then returns for free the packaging to be refilled. Zero waste!

If we can make drastic improvements in our plastic use, on an individual as well as corporate and international level, there may still remain sea turtles, whales, dolphins, sharks, sea birds et al, to thank us. They have precious little to thank us for right now.

No. 2  Sunscreen

In 1938 a Swiss chemistry student Franz Greiter got a touch of sunburn while climbing Mount Piz Buin in the Alps. So guess what he did – yes, he went home and invented the first sunscreen. And for decades since, sunscreen’s been protecting us from turning an uncomfortable shade of pink, as well as more serious health issues.

Then in 2016, sunscreen joined the ranks of those brainwaves that seemed so good at the time, but might actually have been a huge environmentally-costly mistake. In that year a scientific study was conducted to ascertain if oxybenzone, an active ingredient of the stuff, was damaging coral reefs. The researchers concluded that it was. And several islands and states in the world have already banned it.

Oh, if only there were something ‘greener’ we could use to block those harmful UV rays!

Well, there is. We can harvest it in small quantities straight from nature, from algae to be precise, and it goes by the appealing name of Shinorine. As of now scientists have proved they can synthesise it. The next step is to scale up production.

Once again, our futurists are reluctant to come down on one side or the other. Is Shinorine going to be good for the environment, or prove as harmful as oxybenzone? All they will tell us is, “Widespread adoption of shinorine without sufficient research could expose corals or other aquatic and marine organisms to a new substance with unknown impacts.”

They are undoubtedly right to err on the side of caution. If only we had been so wise before we unleashed all our agrochemicals, our agro-waste, and yes, our plastic, our fossil fuel gases, our nuclear power, and indeed a superabundance of ourselves on to suffering Nature.

No. 3  Making rain

Last week, “the Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation said it was preparing to deploy two planes for cloud seeding between Tuesday and Friday, if conditions are suitable.”  Right now Bangkok is shrouded in a pall of smog, and Thailand’s Department of Royal Rainmaking hopes a downpour of the wet stuff will clear the air. (On the website there is a tab called “The King and the Royal Rain”)

Meanwhile in Tibet, China is poised to send up a battery of rockets to release silver-iodide particles in the clouds, with the aim of making it rain over 1.6 million square kilometres of land, a vast area almost the size of Mexico. In 2017, northern China suffered its worst drought on record, With their rockets they hope to ensure water security for their own people, especially farmers, downstream.

Cloud-seeding has been around since the 1940s, but nothing on this kind of scale has ever been attempted before. Unsurprisingly, this is worrying our futurists. They fear such a dramatic alteration to the weather will damage Tibet’s rare alpine steppe and meadow ecosystems, in turn threatening its rare endemic species.

Photos from Wild Animals on the Tibetan Plateau²

Tibet is already the one of the largest sources of freshwater in the world, in third place after the North and South Poles. 46% of the world’s population rely on water originating in that country. Tibet, the Roof of the World, high in the Himalayas, lies three miles above sea level, its water feeding 10 major rivers across 11 countries of South-East Asia.

There are no simple certainties about the Chinese plan. It could all go horribly wrong, and have who knows what consequences, not just on the Tibetan plateau, but across a vast expanse of the globe. It certainly has the perturbing potential to be yet another bright idea that seemed like a good idea at the time…

No. 4  Fishy oilseed crops

The possibilities of genetic engineering are endless. So advanced are we as a species, we now have the knowhow to redesign almost every living thing to our own requirements. So why not modify oil-producing crops to produce “the omega-3 fatty acids that are normally found in fish and prized for their health-promoting capabilities.” Fantastic, especially for vegetarians and vegans. And the wild fish populations.

But… Why does there always have to be a but! The modification will displace some of the plants’ natural oils. How will this affect the insects that feed on them? If one study showing caterpillars metamorphosing into butterflies with deformed wings is anything to go by, the answer is “badly”.

It’s a zero-sum game. Benefitting one side of the equation (us) automatically means disadvantaging the other. This is true of so many of our bright ideas from the past. Yet we still don’t seen to have grasped that disadvantaging other animals, the environment, Nature, in pursuit of our own ends is only a short-term fix that is certain to boomerang back on us. And time is running out.

Other trends the futurists identified

that will make themselves felt one way or another in the environment this year include:

• microbial protein for livestock
• deeper sea fishing
• modification of plant microbiomes
• the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s decision not to regulate the use of gene editing in plants
• the development of salt-tolerant strains of rice
• and China’s creation of a whole new river

Read more here

A couple of biggies they didn’t spot

a. The expanding market for whole-roasted cricket

Insect mass-rearing, though in its infancy is apparently a fast-growing industry. The unfortunate cricket can be fed on nothing but weeds and agricultural by-products, making it a source of protein far more sustainable than the animals we more usually associate with farming.

“Reared insects are increasingly seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to meat, even by the United Nations. The future food for a growing world population.” And a readily available source of protein for malnourished children.“Even very poor people would be able to rear crickets.”³

b. Biodiversity offsets

We’ve grown familiar with the idea of carbon offsets. If you need to take a flight somewhere, you can buy yourself enough carbon credit to offset your own portion of the plane’s emissions. Then the money is used in climate protection projects.

Biodiversity offsets work on a similar principle. Setting aside protected areas for Nature to compensate for and minimise the impact of large-scale industrial projects like new mines or dams, or at the other end of the scale, new housing. Recent research discovered 12,983 of these set-aside habitat projects across 73 countries occupying an area larger than Greece. “153,000 square kilometres is a big chunk of land.” And in spite of its being a relatively new idea, it’s catching on fast.

“This is the start of something major,” says researcher Dr Bull, “‘Biodiversity offsets – ‘No Net Loss’ policies, seeking to protect our natural environment, are being implemented very quickly.”

Could this be a promising step towards Half Earth for Nature?

One final trend the futurists have hope for – Insurance for Nature

The futurists picked up on a joint project involving the Mexican government, the Mexican tourist industry, The Nature Conservancy, and – of all things – the insurance industry. Between them they have set up a trust fund to protect the Mesoamerican Reef in the Caribbean. The fund can be called upon for restoration projects in the case of damage to the reef. In effect, the reef is insured.

The futurists think schemes like this have potential for the insurance industry to “play a role in protecting natural areas and helping damaged habitat recover from disasters.” The model could be replicated worldwide to preserve and restore Nature.

Are they right? Where will it all end? Can our clever innovations save the planet and us with it? Or will they just turn out to be more of our brainwaves that seemed like a good idea at the time? Any crystal ball gazers out there?

Take the Conservation International pledge to be a Voice for the Planet  #newdealfornature

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¹“Many of these toys inadvertently became part of a massive scientific study: beachcombers have been finding them ever since, helping oceanographers refine their models of ocean surface currents.” The Science Museum

² Clockwise – the Tibetan antelope, the pika, the Tibetan blue bear, the Tibetan wild ass, the snow leopard and the Tibetan wolf

³ This one is not for me as a vegan. But then, I’m fortunate enough not to have to live in poverty with malnourished children

Recycle your plastic bottle tops with Lush – here’s how

Updates

6th February 2019  There’s insufficient evidence your sunscreen harms coral reefs

6th February 2019  Could Spider Silk Become a Natural Replacement for Plastic?

7th February 2019  Millions of tons of plastic waste could be turned into clean fuels, other products

27th March 2019  Plastic Pollution: Could We Have Solved the Problem Nearly 50 Years Ago?

Further reading

Fixing the environment: when solutions become problems

5 unexpected solutions to the plastic crisis

Founders of plastic waste alliance investing billions in new plants to make more plastic

Our love affair with single-use plastics is over

‘We Can’t Recycle Our Way Out of This Problem’: Ben & Jerry’s Bans Single-Use Plastics

Related posts

Futurology Offers More Hope than Fears for the Animals & the Planet

Hope for the Animals & the Planet?

There is Always Hope for the Animals & the Planet

Ten Fascinating Ways Technology is Saving Animals

How Drones Might Just Save Our Endangered Animals & the Planet

‘WILD’ Needs Us to Save Half for Nature

Sources

15 trends with big implications for conservation in 2019 | Ensia

Sunscreen: a history

 

 

 

 

‘WILD’ Needs Us to Save Half for Nature

 

“Our goal is nothing short of a healthy, vibrant, life-sustaining planet. And we’re going to need your help to achieve it.”

– Nature Needs Half 

If you are anything like me, you will find yourself hiding your head in your hands under the daily barrage of dismal news about the state of the planet. If it’s making you feel depressed, helpless and hopeless, please don’t switch off just yet. We have the antidote – a big dollop of good news from the WILD Foundation to re-invigorate and re-empower us. And a challenge.

Passionate people and conservation organisations are changing the world. All they need is for us to play our parts in “the biodiversity revolution” they are creating. There is good news. There is hope. But burying our heads in our hands is not an option. We need the courage to stare in the face the destination we are headed towards if we fail to take action now.

What we stand to lose

Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist and conservationist Edward O. Wilson writes in his 2016 book “Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life” of “the complexity, beauty and majesty of Nature” in which “each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.”  These myriad marvels – from axolotl to armadillo, humming bird to hippo, parrot to pangolin, tawny owl to tiger, walrus to wolf, not to mention plant life – are what we stand to lose in this age of the Anthropocene, the 6th age of mass extinction caused entirely by the activities of Man.

 

 

Yet our species recklessly continues to suffocate the earth under a toxic blanket of new farms, dams, factories and housing that obliterate vital habitat, polluting land, sea and air in the process. And simultaneously persists in giving free rein to our own population growth, and the callous annihilation of non-human animals.

Wilson asks,“What kind of a species are we that we treat the rest of life so cheaply?” 

We are, he says, “a danger to ourselves and the rest of life…. the most destructive but unrepentant species in Earth’s history.” 

Who can argue with that?

The Age of Loneliness

If we continue on this catastrophic course, the only wild animals left on the sublime planet thronging with life we inherited, will be rats, pigeons and jellyfish. We may of course still have our domesticated plants and animals, but what small comfort for the 4 million dazzling species we look to lose in the next 30 years if we carry on as we are.

We will have entered the Eremocine, the Age of Loneliness. A conquered planet almost devoid of natural life. What a terrifying prospect.

“Our relationship with this planet is badly broken. We need a new story about how we live here. We need a new relationship with the Earth that is thoughtful and balanced.”

– James Brundige, conservationist and wildlife film-maker.

Nature Needs Half

Thoughtful, balanced yes, and bold.  Professor Wilson wants to steer us off the road that leads inexorably towards that unthinkable Age of Loneliness, and take a new direction – nothing less than giving over entirely to Nature free from the injurious activity of humans, half the planet. A full 50% of land and sea. And to prove his bold vision is not simply words on a page, ink on paper, he set up the Half-Earth Project: “With science at its core and our transcendent moral obligation to the rest of life at its heart, the Half-Earth Project is working to conserve half the land and sea to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity, including ourselves.”

A bold and radical vision but actually, not a new one. Same idea, different name. Nature Needs Half, the brainchild of the WILD Foundation, first saw the light of day at the 9th World Wilderness Congress held in Mexico in 2009.

So, an entire half the planet for Nature – great idea, but is it translatable into real life? Or is it just a comforting fantasy?

“When it was first launched, this idea didn’t go over so well… Although many conservation leaders admitted to personally supporting the half goal, they believed that publicly aligning themselves with half would ruin their credibility.”

If Nature Needs Half was first mooted a whole 9 years ago, what’s been happening since?

Though his widely read book, “Half Earth” came some years after NNH, what Harvard naturalist E.O.Wilson did achieve through his legendary status, was to lend the Half Earth proposal real credibility and clout. Now “the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Cristiana Pasca Palmer, is calling for ambitious actions in advance of the 2020 CBD in Beijing, China. At the same time, many of the world’s most prestigious conservation organizations are in the process of creating a groundbreaking ‘Global Deal for Nature’“, to go hand in hand with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Great news.

But hasn’t the last decade seen more loss of vital biodiverse habitat? Aren’t we already too late?

There are currently across the world 161,000 protected reserves and parks making up somewhere in the region of 15% of Earth’s land area. 15% is still a shortfall from 17%, the unduly modest target the Convention on Biological Diversity originally agreed back in 1992. And of that 15%, a third is inadequately protected and under intense pressure from human activity, leaving a mere 10% properly set aside for Nature.

10%, 15%, 17% – still a long way short of WILD’s and Wilson’s ambitious vision for half the planet. 50%, isn’t more than that gone already?

Well, here comes even better news – 

No, we still have half left! We can do this.

There still remains enough wilderness as yet untouched by human blight. And if we can send spacecraft to distant planets, surely we can save our own. There is nothing that cannot be accomplished when we pull together. The trick is to get people on board, and that is exactly what Nature Needs Half is doing. Year on year NNH brings more people and organisations under its umbrella, creating an ever-growing world wide web of conservation partners which include Wilderness Foundation Global, Rewilding Earth, Rewilding Europe, National Geographic, London Zoological Society, Sanctuary Asia, Coalition WILD, Wild Wonders of China, Google Earth Outreach, the Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation, and more.

And now hopefully, us.

Here are just a few of Nature Needs Half network’s achievements in 2018 –

1. Digital Earth

This year, National Geographic’s chief scientist, Jonathan Baillie co-authored “Space for Nature which argues the case for achieving 30% of land and ocean protected by 2030, 50% by 2050.

Under the auspices of NNH, that revered institution National Geographic has joined forces with another colossus on the world stage, Google, to devise a failsafe way of getting world leaders on board with those literally life-saving objectives. With NatGeo’s unsurpassable knowledge on the ground and Google’s tech expertise, together they are creating a public-access four-dimensional digital Earth.

“This living rendition of the globe will allow users to monitor the world’s species and ecosystems over time, understand threats to the natural world and realize solutions to help achieve a planet in balance.” – Partners’ press release.

It’s hoped that imaging change across the planet in real time will have a much greater impact on national governments and their citizens than pages of dry statistics. Seeing is believing.

Under the NNH umbrella, NatGeo is also working with the Nature Conservancy, and the Wyss Foundation which has pledged a staggering $1 billion to help meet the 2030 targets. Good news indeed!

2. China

China, that world super-power we most often associate with rapid industrialisation, pollution and environmental degradation, recently made a massively significant u-turn, pronouncing itself in 2015 the ecological civilization of the 21st century¹

Why is this so important? Because:-

• China is home to 20% of the world’s population
• China is the world’s second largest economy
• China’s current and future ecological footprint is enormous
• China is in the top 3 most biodiverse countries
• China has committed to the most ambitious goals and environmental policies of all the major nations on earth

This year, Nature Needs Half partners collaborated in a peer-reviewed article introducing the half-Earth vision to this country of 1.3 billion people. And again, we’re not just talking academic ink on paper. The article details the practical steps China can take to reach the goal of 50% for Nature in the next 30 year. The message reached more than 50,000 Chinese movers-and-shakers, academics, land managers, and land management professionals.

WILD and the Wilderness Specialist Group of the IUCN have also joined forces with Professor Yang Rui, expert in wilderness protection. “There are few if any professionals in China whose resumé commands the recognition and respect his does, with literally dozens of major planning, policy, and research projects to protect wild nature.” This hugely influential man, both in and outside China, is the recently appointed president of Tsinghua University’s brand new Institute for National Parks, and has wasted no time in putting forward six major suggestions to put wilderness at the heart of the chain of national parks China has in the making.

3. Securing last strongholds of critically endangered species

“Nature Needs Half partner, the Quick Response Biodiversity Fund, with the help of a major grant from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation², secured 13 sites around the world for rare and critically endangered species. Many of these sites are the last stronghold for some of Earth’s most unique and vulnerable lifeforms.”

The Half Earth movement is gathering momentum. There is good news. There is hope.

Now, at the turning of the year, NNH partner and conservationist James Brundige throws down this challenge before us –

“The time is now. Nature Needs Half. And Nature needs you!“

What better way to start 2019 than by committing to Saving Half for Nature. Nature will richly reward us.

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1 You can be part of this amazing work for the planet by becoming a WILD member here

2 Take the Half-Earth pledge here

3 Sign the Nature Needs Half Declaration here

4 Sign petition for Half for the Animals here

5 Free up more land for wildlife by moving towards a plant-based diet and reducing your ecological footprint. Info @

Forks Over Knives   Vegan Society   Vegan Outreach   PETA UK   PETA    Viva!

6 Send your political representatives the Grow Green report, or if in the UK contact your MP here about the Grow Green campaign to transition unsustainable livestock farming to plant protein farming. And share with your friends

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¹ In 2015 “The [Chinese] Congress clearly stated that China must incorporate the idea of ecological civilization into all aspects of economic, political, cultural, and social progress. Actions and activities relating to China’s geographical space, industrial structures, modes of production and people’s living should all be conducive to conserving resources and protecting the environment so as to create a sound working and living environment for the Chinese people and make contributions to global ecological safety.” UN Environment Our Planet

² “With contributions from scientists and partners around the world, One Earth, an initiative of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF), has developed a bold, new plan to avert a climate crisis and protect our biosphere. Justin Winters, LDF’s Executive Director, explains the three goals humanity needs to achieve by 2050: Transform our energy systems to 100% clean, renewable energy; Protect, connect and restore 50% of our lands and seas; and Shift to regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture globally. At the heart of this effort is a new map of the world called the Global Safety Net, which shows what the world could look like if we achieve these three goals.”

Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation Executive Director Justin Winters on One Earth below

James Brundige”s TedEx talk on Nature Needs Half in this video

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Updates  

5th February 2019 Conservation groups press world leaders to protect 30% of the planet

4th March 2019 The view from the bottleneck: Is nature poised for a big comeback?

Related posts

World Wildlife Day – Time to Save Half for the Animals

There Is Always Hope for the Animals & the Planet

Hands Clasped Across the River for Two Big Cats’s

World First – China’s Bird Airport

Futurology Offers More Hopes than Fears for the Animals & the Planet

Tiggywinkles, Tigers & Tunnels

Sources

Most Important Conversation for Nature | WILD Foundation

Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life – review

How Are We Going To Save The Planet? By Dreaming Crazy

Rats and pigeons ‘replace iconic species’

One-Third of the World’s Protected Areas Are Threatened by ‘Intense’ Human Pressure

Edward O. Wilson’s New Take on Human Nature

Google and NatGeo team up to combat climate change

High Schools Across China Are Now Offering Animal Welfare Courses!

“In a long due yet still impressive act of growth, the Chinese Ministry of Education has added an animal welfare course for high schools and students.”

This is MAJOR good news, so welcome after everything anti-animal and anti-nature emanating from the other side of the Pacific in the USA, a country which is travelling back into the dark ages under the present administration.

What makes the news even more exciting is that China has a population of 1.411 billion¹, the largest of any country in the world. And approximately 30% of them are aged between 0 – 24 years². That is a lot of young people, and they will be the ones to shape the country’s future.

Can we hope this is a turning point in Chinese attitudes towards animals and Nature? There have been some exciting trends in the last couple of years –

• Just last week at a media event in Beijing, China announced it will host the 11th World Wilderness Congress (Wild11) in 2019
• In 2016 the Chinese government formulated a vision to become the ecological civilization of the 21st century
• Also in 2016, this vast country – which accompanying its growing affluence had seen an off-the-scale increase in demand for meat and diary in the last couple of decades – announced its plan to cut meat consumption by 50% – a move warmly welcomed by environmentalists and animal-lovers alike
• And in 2017, then the market for 70% of ivory, China announced its ban on the ivory trade
• Now “China’s State Oceanic Administration (SOA) earlier this month announced it will dramatically curb commercial development of coastal wetlands. “I’ve never heard of anything quite so monumental,” says Nicola Crockford of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds U.K., which has worked to protect habitat of migratory birds in China and elsewhere.”

Does China need to keep making changes? It so does. In spite of there being a growing animal advocacy movement in recent years, the country and its people at large still have a reputation for horrific cruelty to animals.

Bear bile farming 

Bears are kept in cages sometimes so small they cannot stand up or turn around in them. Bile is extracted from the living bear’s gallbladder as an ingredient for traditional Chinese medicine. Most of the bears are starved and dehydrated and suffer from multiple diseases and malignant tumours that end up killing them.

Dogs and cats

Are cruelly slaughtered for their meat. Often they are stolen pets. They suffer broken limbs being transported vast differences without food or water to meat markets.

Animal in Zoos

Kept in small barren cages. Some such as elephants in chains. Live (and terrified) hens, cows, donkeys and pigs are dropped into the enclosure of lions and tigers for the entertainment of the crowds. The animals are often cruelly broken by trainers to force them to perform. Tigers and lions have their teeth ripped and claws ripped out. Babies are removed from their mothers for lucrative photo ops.

Donkeys for Ejaio

Donkeys hit with sledgehammers before having their throats slit. Then skinned. Their skins are rendered down into ejaio, a gelatin considered to be a cure for all ills in traditional Chinese medicine.

Illegal imports of endangered animal parts in huge quantities from around the world

Animals Used in Science

Even now Chinese scientists have announced their breakthrough cloning of 2 macaques. They and further cloned monkeys will be used for animal testing. Scientists have also perfected the technology for creating the human/pig hybrid – ‘incubating’ human hearts in pigs. The intention is to use pigs to produce a regular supply for human heart transplants.

At this point China has no kind of animal welfare laws in place. There is much that needs to change if we are to credit the country with any sense of humanity towards nonhuman animals. So, if these Animal Welfare classes can open up Chinese youth to a newfound empathy with and compassion for their fellow creatures, we can hope for some big changes in the not-too-distant-future. For once, some animal news to get excited about!

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(The cover photo is there simply because I couldn’t resist its absolute gorgeousness. Hopefully the endangered red panda will eventually be a beneficiary of this step forward in the education of Chinese children.)

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Postscript

China, of course is scarcely the only culprit treating animals with scant regard for their welfare. It has to be said that even in countries like the UK and the US with long established animal protection laws, there are still so many ways both domesticated animals and wildlife experience cruelty at human hands.

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Updates

8th March 2018 Massive new panda national park in China will try to save the iconic species

¹Demographics of China

².Indexmundi

Sources

High Schools Across China Are Now Offering Animal Welfare Courses! – One Green PlanetOne Green Planet

Facts about Cruelty to Animals in Asia

China moves to protect coastal wetlands used by migratory birds

Related posts

World First – China’s Bird Airport

Hands Clasped Across the River for Two Big Cats

The Next Extinction – Donkeys??

When Everyone is Telling You Meat is the Bad Guy

 

The Next Extinction – Donkeys??

“Donkeys may soon go extinct if they continue to be killed.” 

Abubakar Ya’u, Nigerian sand-digger

China is on a quest to buy up the global supply of donkeys.

With a population of a whopping 1.4 billion – the largest of any country in the world and bigger than the populations of North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and all of Western Europe combined – the country of China is one gigantic gaping mouth sucking up commodities from every corner of the planet. And in no arena of global trade is this more true than with the trade in wildlife ‘products’, legal and illegal.

Traditional Chinese medicine is the villain of this story, not only for horribly cruel practices like extracting bile from captive bears, condemning the poor animals to a life of utter misery, but also for the tiger bones, pangolin scales, dried seahorse, antelope, buffalo and rhino horn, deer antlers, penises from all kinds of animal (tiger penis being the most sought after though illegal), dog testicles, and snake bile it swallows up in enormous and ever-increasing quantities.

In spite of the exaggerated claims, there is little evidence of the medical efficacy of these ‘products’. Rhino and other animal horn as well as pangolin scales for example, are made entirely of keratin, like our own fingernails. The makers of the ‘medicine’ might just as well use their own nail clippings.

In point of fact, we shouldn’t tar all TCM with the same brush. “Reputable TCM practitioners have explicitly distanced themselves from animal-based remedies. Animal penises, for one, do not help male performance, says TCM expert Chen Shilin, of the Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences in Beijing. ‘It is merely a folk therapy,’ he says.”

But charlatans continue to cash in on the fortunes to be made from China’s folk superstitions.

And the effect on the world’s wildlife is devastating:-

• Tigers An estimated 1,000 killed for their body parts in the past 10 years to meet demands in Asia. Considering there are only 3,200 left in the world, this is desperately worrying. The illegal killing of the big cats places them high on IUCN’s Red List – status Endangered
• Pangolins have the unfortunate distinction of being the most illegally trafficked creature in the world, with over 1 million estimated to have been taken from the wild in the last 10 years. They too rank high on the Red List – Endangered
• Seahorses It’s estimated that 150 million are traded and sold every year. This is not sustainable – Red Listed as Vulnerable
• Rhinos 3 a day killed in 2016 in S. Africa alone. The Western Black rhino already extinct in the wild. White rhino on IUCN Red List – status Near Threatened

And now Donkeys???

Who would ever have considered donkeys at risk? But around the world they are in exponential decline. It’s simple economics, a question of supply and demand. With the increasing prosperity of the Chinese middle classes, demand keeps growing. As the supply of animal parts diminishes, the price for them rises. The poachers and illegal traffickers get better and better returns on their ‘goods’ and the incentive to supply intensifies – an upward spiral. For the animals though, the spiral is all down. We’ve seen it with tigers, rhino and pangolin. Now donkeys.

With the donkeys, it’s all about a substance called Ejiao, a highly-prized gelatin produced by rendering donkey hides. The industry in China is enormous. The Guardian describes it as “a global megabusiness. What was once a humble blood tonic for conditions like anemia – a claim supported by no clinical evidence – has been rebranded as a wellness product for China’s ascendant middle class, and now features in face creams, sweets and liqueurs, as well as a wide variety of medicinal preparations. There are claims it will help with anemia and acne, boost your energy, improve your sleep, nourish your yin, prevent cancer, make you look better and even improve your libido. It is billed, in short, as a miracle elixir.”

China produces 5,000 tons of ejiao a year, requiring a horrific 4 million donkey hides.

Such is the demand that China’s own donkey population has dropped 50% in 20 years, creating a vacuum that is sucking in donkeys from all over the world. “The explosion in demand had led to a surge in donkey thefts in Africa, Asia and South America.”

Donkeys in the continent of Africa are particularly hard hit. Countries in the south of the continent, unlike the north, have long had a culture of eating donkey flesh. That means the trading of donkeys from northern countries to the south is already well-established. Despite Niger, Botswana, Senegal, Mali, Burkino Faso and Gambia imposing restrictions on the donkey trade, and Zimbabwe and Ethiopia closing donkey abattoirs, these gentle creatures are still being covertly transported south. There they are slaughtered, the flesh taken and their hides shipped to China. There is simply too much money to be made for the illicit north-south trade to stop,

For those who rely upon their donkeys for their subsistence, like the sand-diggers of Nigeria, the temptation to sell their beasts of burden is powerful. Where 2 years ago you could buy a good strong donkey for 15,000-18,000 naira ($42-50), now such an animal fetches 70,000-75,000, a 5-fold increase. In 2 years. And one sand-digger by the name of Garba says he was offered 95,000 naira for his biggest donkey. He resisted the tantalising proposition, aware that his gain would only be short-term. If he did sell, it would be too expensive for him to get a replacement – it would cost him his living.

Others though, have sold, or had their donkeys stolen: “At a market in Ughelli, Delta State—the centre of the Nigerian donkey trade—hundreds of donkeys are crammed into pens under the burning sun as they await their fate. Some are skeletally thin, all are quiet.

“New animal pens are being made every month as the demand for donkey hides and meat is met with an steadily growing supply from the north.”

The only remotely good thing that can be said is that these unfortunate creatures are killed before being exported to China. This is what PETA has to say about what happens to live donkeys in that country.

“Our campaign against the live export of animals garnered new international media attention after a PETA exposé revealed the horrors of the Chinese donkey-gelatine industry. Right now, donkeys are being abused and killed so their skins can be boiled down to make gelatine for ejiao, a traditional Chinese “medicine”. The demand for ejiao is so high that the Australian government is considering facilitating the live export of donkeys to China! The gentle, sensitive animals would have to endure a harrowing journey to a Chinese facility where donkeys are hit with sledgehammers, their throats are slit, and they are skinned. PETA and our affiliates are working to prevent the live export of all animals and urging compassionate consumers never to buy products containing ejiao or other cruelly obtained ingredients.”

Take action for these much-abused animals

Please sign & share the petitions

Prevent the Export of Live Australian Donkeys to the Chinese Ejiao Industry

Stop the Donkey Slaughter

Ban Donkey Hide Exports

Don’t Send Donkeys to their Doom

Amazon and Ebay: Stop Selling Donkey hide gelatin products (Ejiao)

Help Jordan’s Donkeys

Support The Donkey Sanctuary or The Brooke, both of which work to improve the hard lot of donkeys around the world.

Update 

12th February 2019  Evil Chinese donkey slaughter is spreading wildly

2nd March 2019  Niger banned donkey exports in 2016. There are now 1.5 million donkeys in the country

16th December 2019 Remote hope in midst of slaughter on an epic scale, donkey skin created in the lab Chinese trade in hides has led to global donkey massacre

Sources

A donkey’s tale: Nigeria becomes key hide export hub

5 Animals Threatened by Traditional Asian Medicine

Traditional Chinese Medical Authorities Are Unable to Stop the Booming Trade in Rare Animal Parts

Related posts

Man, Money & Rhinos – Unravelling the Tangled Knot of Poaching

Hands Clasped Across the River for Two Big Cats

If you step into the stillness of the snowy pine forests, where China meets Far East Russia and the mighty Amur river flows into the Sea of Japan, do not expect an encounter with Panthera pardus orientalis. A sika deer or two, elk, and even with a bit of luck, wild boar may cross your path – but never the Amur leopard. It’s as elusive as it is rare. Only 70 remain in the wild – the world’s rarest wild feline. Even conservationists who’ve spent years working with them count themselves lucky if they get to see so much as a paw print, or the site of a kill. The cats themselves will never be seen, except on occasional camera trap footage.

It is just possible though, you’ve seen this beautiful animal in a zoo. There are around 200 in zoos’ captive breeding programs – still a perilously small population. This leopard will not be coming off IUCN‘s Red List any time soon.

The good news

But now there is great news. Just last month China approved a new national park for the Amur leopard, and its almost equally rare cousin, the Amur (Siberian) tiger.

The two carnivores have seen illegal logging shrink their habitat, and numbers of their prey of preference, elk and deer, dwindle as a result of poaching. There have even been reports of tigers hungry enough to stray into residential areas taking dogs and cattle.

This is Amur-Heilong, home of the Amur leopard and the Amur tiger, an area as big as Alaska straddling the border of two of the world’s greatest nations, China and Russia

A few facts about this exciting new national park in Chinese Amur-Heilong

• At 5,637 square miles, it will be 60 percent bigger than Yellowstone National Park
• Communities and factories within the new national park area will be relocated, to avoid conflicts between wildlife and humans
• At its heart will be a centre for monitoring, research and rescue of the big cats
• The park will be completed by 2020

The surprise

Talk conservation, and China has scarcely been a country that leaps to mind. We are much more likely to think of the millions flocking from rural villages for a new life in rapidly growing industrial cities.

Or China’s incredible production levels: as in Qiaotou the ‘button capital of the world’, churning out 15 billion buttons and 200 million meters of zippers a year. Or one worker on his/her own racking up – what surely is not humanly possible – 80,000 umbrellas a year.

Or the spectacle of an entire city’s population scurrying about their business in face masks, hoping this won’t be the year they become one of the three quarters of a million who will die prematurely, the result of the country’s appalling levels of pollution.

All a far cry from wild Amur-Heilong, “one of the most biologically diverse temperate forests in the world, vast steppe grasslands and unbroken taiga.”

But with the turn of the 21st century China turned too, in a surprising, historic and incredibly welcome new direction. The heavily industrialised country with its brutally damaged environment and waning biodiversity announced its intention to become the ecological civilization of the 21st century. With its hand held and guided along this unfamiliar path by an array of notable conservation and sustainability agencies¹, China’s ambitious target is to build “a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society by 2020.”  An ambitious target in a positively astounding time frame.

(While President Xi Jinping is personally invested in reversing “severe ecological damage” and building a greener future for his country, his counterpart in the White House is busy dragging the US back in the opposite direction)

Part of China’s grand green plan is an entire, revamped national park system to be developed over the next three years, with the Amur-Heilong reserve as just one piece of the jigsaw. The fabulously visionary Bird Airport is another. 9 pilot parks already established. Hopeful and exciting times in the Peoples’ Republic!

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Brought to the brink

Apart from the Amur tiger, to which it will give a wide berth, the leopard has no enemies to fear but one – the most feared animal on the face of the planet, Man. The cat has been hunted for its beautifully marked and luxuriously thick coat, and hunted again because it preyed on the deer and elk that human hunters crave for themselves. Humans felled and burned its forests, and crisscrossed its territory with railways and lethal roads until all that was left for the cat to roam from its vast historic range was an area the size of Dorset. And a population brought to an all time low of 35. Man it was that brought this leopard to near-extinction.

Over the river into Russia

Just the other side of the great Amur river, Russia is also working hard to turn around the fate of Panthera pardus orientalis. In 2012 Russia created, also in Amur-Heilong, a secure national park for the cat, good habitat with ample prey, the Land of the Leopard. This short word picture of a camera trap clip is testimony to the park’s success:

“The leopard steps forward to the roe deer carcass, wedged among the rocks where she dragged her prey two days earlier. She looks back along the trail and coughs discreetly. Three small whiskered faces emerge, and her six-month-old cubs scamper over the rocks to greet her. She steps back and allows them to feed. 

It’s a heart-warming scene of health and productivity. “

Wildlife Heritage Foundation

(How much would we give for a glimpse of one of those ‘three small whiskered faces’!)

Russia too is making history

From the 2007 low of 35 leopards, the population today at 70 is ‘stable’, and hopefully still on the up. Good news. But Land of the Leopard is reaching capacity, so Russia, partnering with its own set of conservation agencies², has earmarked an additonal but separate reserve for the leopards to the northeast, at Lozovsky. The Amur leopards that once slipped like shadows through the Lozovsky forest wilderness were wiped out 30 years ago, but their prey animals are still in good supply. It’s never been attempted before, but the scientists reckon reintroducing the cats is a viable option.

No-one though wants to chance moving any of the few and precious Land of the Leopard cats. Far too risky. So this is where, we hope, the zoos’ captive breeding programs can make a real contribution to conservation.

© Jackie Thomas

Wildlife Heritage Foundation

“Young leopards bred from these captive animals will be raised in a special breeding center inside the reserve, and the cubs chosen for reintroduction must pass rigorous tests, proving that they can hunt in the wild, and that they still retain the ‘panic response’ fear of humans.”

Everything is ready and waiting for them right now. So provided cubs born in captivity can adapt successfully to the wild, two or three breeding pairs of Amur leopards may be stealing silently through the snow in Lozovsky as early as the end of this year. And if the program works out as hoped, it will pave the way for more reintroductions in the future.

Two nations, two stories

Humans brought the Amur leopard to crisis point. It is still on human behaviour that the future of the leopard depends. For the cat’s population to have a chance of bouncing back,“the communities that make their living in this remote corner of the world must be prepared to share their forests with the big cats.”

In Russian Amur-Heilong the people are already onside. Over centuries they’ve learned the wisdom of sharing the land with predators. Besides, today’s Amur leopards are immensely popular stars in their own “reality show” (camera trap footage) on Russian TV. Even President Putin is a fan.

In China though, the mindset is different. So,“an outreach program in the Heilongjiang region is working to convince locals that leopards are worth more than just their pelts,” and the forests more than just timber. Conservation agencies are organising cooperatives to show the people more sustainable ways to live with and from the forests, such as harvesting Korean pine nuts, or working for the park itself, including as park rangers.

The great powers finally get it together

Two great nations divided by one great river which marks their common border. Two great nations dividing between them Amur-Heilong, the land of the Amur leopard and the Amur tiger.

Image:Phoenix Fund

You can drive across the border from China to Russia. The two big cats of course can’t. They know nothing of borders and divisions, and care even less. And that used to put them in great danger, because what 15 years ago was a quiet road, is now a major highway buzzing with traffic from a new and sizeable city on the Chinese side. That is what makes Russia’s money-no-object Narvinskii Pass Tunnel, a new wildlife corridor opened in 2016, running for a third of a mile underneath a major migration route for the cats, truly a matter of life and death.

So, two nations joined across the Amur by road, but still acting separately in their efforts to bring the iconic big cats back from the brink.

Until now. “Six months ago, the Russian government signed an agreement with Beijing University that enabled, among other things, the sharing of camera trap images.” These two beautiful cats have finally brought the nations together, and in “a new spirit of co-operation”  the two powers are at last reaching hands across the divide. 

It may have taken longer than it ought, but it’s another historic step very much in the right direction. Let us hope it will result in many more ‘small whiskered faces’ caught on camera in the years to come.

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Breaking news

Wild tigers to reappear in Kazakhstan after 70 years

Last Friday (Sep 8th), Kazakhstan & the WWF signed off on an historic reintroduction of wild tigers – Amur tigers to be precise. Not the same as the Caspian tiger driven to extinction in Kazakhstan 70 years ago, but closely related.

The Fund is providing $10 million (8.3 million euros) for the project.

WWF’s Russian representative Igor Chestin hailed the signing as a “event of global significance” but warned “It will be years before tigers appear on this territory because the territory needs to be specially prepared.”

Kazakh Agriculture Minister Askar Myrzakhmetov said work on a specially protected natural area for the tigers would start at the beginning of next year.

“In fact, we are talking about restoring a whole ecosystem, where this species is set to be reintroduced,” Myrzakhmetov said at a press conference in the Kasakh capital Astana.

Read more

And Nature Needs Us to Work Together with China -Wild Foundation

 20th November 2017 Wonderful work IFAW!

Updates

17th January 2018 New threat to the Amur leopard – infection with deadly canine distemper virus

1st February 2018 

New Sightings of ‘Putin’s Tigers’ Are Good News for Conservation in Russia

But also some bad news: Russian, Chinese smugglers arrested with tonne of bear paws and remains of 4 Amur tigers

All images with kind permission of ALTA

¹Nature Conservancy, Yale University, the Natural Capital Project, the Paulson Institute, and WWF

² WWF, IUCN and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA)

Sources

Tigers and Leopards to Get New National Park in China, 60% Bigger Than Yellowstone – EcoWatch

Land of the Leopards – bioGraphic

Reporter’s Notebook – Inside a Chinese Factory Town

Pollution in China – Wiki

Qiaotou – Wiki

Our Planet: Ecological Civilization – UN Environment

Related posts

World First – China’s Bird Airport

Tiggywinkles, Tigers & Tunnels

 

World First – China’s Bird Airport

Birds. Airports. Those two words rarely if ever sit happily together. The Airbus forced in 2009 to make a dramatic emergency landing on the Hudson River after Canada geese were sucked into both engines, triggered an unstoppable wave of bird slaughter at airports round the world. The unfortunate animals just happening to be in the ‘wrong’ place were gassed, shot and poisoned in an attempt to prevent bird ‘strikes’ on aircraft. Still are. Airports in China included. At China’s east coast Lishe Airport, for instance, the grassland where migrating egrets stop to feed is being sprayed with rat poison.

“Where biodiversity is most in trouble, it’s in trouble because of direct conflict with human activity.” 

Gretchen Daily

So, the world’s first ever custom-built airport for birds? Mudflats, reed beds, lakes and shallow rapids – something for every feathered frequent flyer. Not a plane in sight – and in China?

Lingang Bird Sanctuary is an ‘airport’ designed with the safety and well-being of migratory waterbirds in mind. (Rendering: McGregor Coxall)

China’s conservation record has not been so hot in the past, to put it politely, so it’s a big surprise, but an incredibly welcome one. In actual fact, the super-power is now ahead of the game in the management of flourishing ecosystems and has declared its vision of becoming the ecological civilization of the 21st century¹

“It’s just such a historic moment in China, with the highest level of government pushing for a level of investment in nature that’s completely unprecedented.” Yale University ecologist Gretchen Daily, 

The Chinese government partnered with Yale and with Gretchen, co-director of the Natural Capital Project, for research on the state of their network of national parks and nature reserves. And now the ecologist is helping the Chinese ‘reimagine’ these spaces to reverse the decline in biodiversity, and at the same time provide ecosystem services such as sandstorm protection and flood control.

“We’re recommending a great expansion of nature reserves to encompass all of the major groups of biodiversity that we studied, which includes plants and the four vertebra groups — mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. That involves many new reserves being established”

And the Lingang Bird Sanctuary in Tianjin is such a one. It has been “specifically designed to accommodate thousands of daily takeoffs and landings by the 50 million birds traveling along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.” This flyway, one of 9 major bird migration flyways across the globe, stretches over 22 countries – the list includes China, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and the United States, taking in Indonesia and Thailand on the way.

The new ‘airport’ at Lingang is all good news:

• It’s where it’s most needed, sitting in the most threatened of all 9 global flyways, and in a country where 70% of intertidal habitat has been lost in the last 10 years
• It’s expected to provide the perfect refuelling stop for those millions of migrating waterbirds – more than 50 species
• The design² includes an education and research centre – another plus for bird conservation
• It will provide green lungs for the city of Tianjin, frequently blanketed with smog so thick it  shuts down its real airports
• It will also act as a ‘sponge city’³ (more below)
• It transforms a former ugly, dirty, smelly landfill site into a fabulous green eco park
• It will provide a much-needed green space where humans too can enjoy the outdoors, breath fresh clean air, wander along miles of walking and cycling trails, watch the wonder of migrating birds and hopefully learn the value of making space in our overcrowded world for other living creatures

A birder’s paradise, Tianjin’s new wetland sanctuary will also help to scrub the city’s notoriously polluted air and prevent major urban flooding events. (Rendering: McGregor Coxall)

Let’s hope Lingang, due to be completed in 2018 ready for its visitors, human, avian and hopefully a bounty of other wildlife, will provide a template for such projects in the future.

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¹“The [Chinese] Congress clearly stated that China must incorporate the idea of ecological civilization into all aspects of economic, political, cultural, and social progress. Actions and activities relating to China’s geographical space, industrial structures, modes of production and people’s living should all be conducive to conserving resources and protecting the environment so as to create a sound working and living environment for the Chinese people and make contributions to global ecological safety.” UN Environment Our Planet

Wow – way to go China! Other countries take note. Ms Daily though sounds a note of caution:

“Aligning the activities of over a billion people around conservation might prove to be a challenge, even with the best of leadership we can hope for.”

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²Australian landscape architecture firm McGregor Coxall (“We Value Cities Ecologies & Communities”)  partnered with Avifauna Research in this ambitious project.

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³Sponge Cities

Lingang bird airport is one of 16 pilot projects in the new Sponge City initiative. In the most populated country in the world, where half of its 527 rapidly-growing cities suffer water shortages classed by the UN as ‘severe’, and another half have woefully inadequate flood protection, there’s a pressing need for storm water to be ‘reimagined’. Last year for instance, the floods in north and central China killed at least 150 people with many more missing, destroyed 53,000 houses and saw hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.

But all that water can be turned from a disaster into an opportunity. ‘Reimagine’ the city as a giant, super-absorbant sponge. Catch the water with rooftop gardens, and at road-level plant-filled ditches (called bioswales) instead of concrete, and lo, you have water for gardens and urban farms, for flushing toilets, and even replenishing drinking water supplies. And zero flooding.

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Updates

25 January 2018 Great news for shorebirds! China to halt coastal land reclamatio

8th March 2018 Massive new panda national park in China will try to save the iconic species

10th July 2019 The path to China’s ‘ecological civilization’ starts with national parks

Sources

China to debut world’s first bird ‘airport‘ – MNN

Airports’ global bird slaughter – 100,000s gassed, shot and poisoned – The Ecologist

China Floods – BBC News

Helping China Rethink its Approach to Conservation – Yale Environment

Related posts

Futurology Promises More Hopes Than Fears for the Animals & the Planet

There is Always Hope for the Animals & the Planet

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When Everyone Is Telling You Meat Is The Bad Guy Revisited

If you are lucky enough to be invited to an official function of Germany’s Ministry for the Environment, you will be treated as from now to an all-vegetarian menu.

Germany, land of sausages and schnitzels, is the latest to join our list of nation states and international organisations giving meat the black mark.

Meat features quite heavily in the German diet, the average citizen devouring 59kg of meat a year, quite a way behind America or Australia’s 89kg, but still a lot of meat.

Just this week Minister for the Environment Barbara Henricks threw a pebble into the calm pond of traditional German food culture when she instituted a ban on serving meat at all future ministry functions. As a well-informed Minister she is no doubt thoroughly versed in all the dietary advice and environmental policies for reducing meat consumption emanating recently from other nations.

She may well also be aware of a 2015 report published by Florida International University revealing meat-eaters as the number one cause of worldwide species extinction.

Unsurprisingly, the minister’s announcement provoked a backlash from the livestock industry. And she has other critics. Ms Henricks is a member of the Social Democrat Party. Members from the Christian Democrat Party (Angela Merkel’s party) have seized upon her pronouncement as a violation of personal freedom that demonstrates the SDP’s willingness to “infringe on the rights of private citizens.”

Shame on the CDP for trying to make political capital out of such an important issue – the fate of the planet no less. And what price the Environment Ministry’s credibility if it continued to dish up environmental destruction on a plate.

“We’re not telling anyone what they should eat,” the environment ministry said in a statement published by the Telegraph. “But we want to set a good example for climate protection, because vegetarian food is more climate-friendly than meat and fish.

Something of an understatement Barbara?

In August 2016 Tecnocracy News’ headline ran:

The United Nations would like to remove every meat animal from the face of the planet if it could, and especially cattle

The UN is not alone. Alarm bells about meat are ringing in the European Union, in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, China, and for big investors in global food companies.

Need I go on? You can’t look anywhere right now without being told that meat is bad news.

So let’s see what preceded the veg*anising of official events at Germany’s Environment Ministry, beginning at the very top with the UN – August 2016

What exactly is the problem with meat? The UN’s International Research Panel reports that livestock farming is the biggest single emitter of greenhouse gas globally, responsible for 14.5% of all emissions causing climate change. Few would now try to deny – apart from Donald Trump – that climate change is a serious planet-threatening problem for which we need a radical solution.

The UN’s answer? Tax meat until it’s too expensive to eat.

“I think it is extremely urgent.  All of the harmful effects on the environment and on health need to be priced into food products.” Professor Maarten Hajer of Utrecht University, lead author of the IRP report.

So here we are, still celebrating the good news of the historic Paris Climate Change Agreement. With nearly 200 countries committed to it, the agreement comes into force in just 3 weeks time, on November 4th 2016. But there is no way many of the signatory nations will be able to keep to their commitment if their people don’t stop eating so much meat. If humans want to keep a planet to live on, they must cut back on meat. It’s as simple as that.

Europe – August 2016

The European Public Health Alliance is calling the EU to account on the same issue of meat’s calamitous effect on global warming. Europe’s Chief Advisor on Sustainability points out that Europe’s new climate policy fails to address the problems caused by intensive livestock farming.

“Preventing dangerous climate change, reversing the rise in diet-related chronic diseases and neutralising the threat of antibiotic resistance are among the most pressing issues facing the world today. An academic consensus is emerging around the understanding that changes to food consumption patterns may well be key to solving all three. Main message: we can’t afford to continue eating as if there is no tomorrow.”

So says Nikolai Pusharev for the EPHA. “Current dietary patterns high in animal products are incompatible with the aim of avoiding dangerous climate change,” he adds. Eating a lot less meat means crops are grown for people not cattle, a change vital for sustainability. In such a scenario far less land under food production is needed, and pressure is taken off the world’s precious forests and endangered habitats.

Sweden – August 2016

Dr David Bryngelsson agrees with the EPHA. His new study concludes, “radically reducing beef and mutton consumption is unavoidable if Europeans are serious about emission reduction.” After exploring six possible scenarios, his researchers found that deep cuts of 50 percent or more in meat consumption is the only way to make the necessary cuts in emissions.

He and his team conclude that Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy which heavily subsidises the farming of animals, is no longer fit for purpose and needs a radical overhaul.

“The evidence is accumulating that meat, particularly red meat, is just a disaster for the environment.” 

Rachel Premack, the Washington Post.

Denmark – April 2016

The Danish Ethics Council which advises the government also agrees.“The Danes’ way of life is far from climatically sustainable, and if we are to live up to the Paris agreement’s objective of keeping global temperature rise well below 2°C, it is necessary to act quickly,” says the council.

Which is why the Danish Council of Ethics, like the UN’s IRP, recommends a meat tax. To begin with on beef, the biggest polluter. It’s “an ethical obligation” to “send a clear signal” to the Danish public that their eating habits have to change – urgently.

UK – November 2015

Key findings of report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs:

• Our appetite for meat is a major driver of climate change
• Reducing global meat consumption will be critical to keeping global warming below the danger level of two degrees Celsius
• Public awareness of the issue is low, and meat remains off the policy agenda
• Governments must lead in shifting attitudes and behaviours

“I don’t think it’s possible to keep on a course for two degrees global warming—to keep climate change to safe levels—without looking at meat consumption,” Laura Wellesley, report’s lead author.

Netherlands – March 2016

The latest dietary guidelines for the Dutch issued earlier this year say, in a nutshell, cut out most of the meat. The reason?  “The livestock industry’s massive environmental impact.”

China – June 2016

With that country’s huge economic boom, meat went in the space of 10 years from rarity to regular staple. China’s new affluence opened the door to adopting the ‘Western diet’, heavy in meat. The Chinese government’s latest dietary guidelines recommend its 1.3 billion people cut their meat consumption by 50%, in the interests of reducing emissions, and improving public health.

Canada – October 2016

Just last week at the One Young World Summit in Ottawa, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson urged young people from all over the world to “eat less meat, or no meat at all. We need each of us to think about our carbon footprint. Become vegetarian or vegan.”

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Money Talks! – September 2016

Dietary guidelines and climate change commitments are one thing, but money is another. It’s time for livestock farmers to start worrying when a group of 40 investors managing assets worth $1.25 trillion launch a campaign urging 16 global food companies to diversify away from industrial farming and into plant-based protein.

The companies targeted include food giants Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Unilever, Tesco and Walmart. The investors in the shape of the Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return Initiative issued a report, “The Future of Food: The Investment Case for a Protein Shake Up.”

70% of meat is produced in factory farms. And factory farming is, says FAIRR’s report, a high-risk production method. In addition to problems from  emissions; rising antibiotic resistance; and deforestation, add the risk of pandemics like avian flu; unsustainable water use; water, air and land pollution; and soil degradation. Investing in factory farming is not looking like such a good bet.

“The world’s over-reliance on factory-farmed livestock to feed the growing global demand for protein is a recipe for a financial, social and environmental crisis,” says Jeremy Coller, leader of FAIRR .

David Sprinkle, Research Director of Packaged Facts agrees:

“On a global basis, alternate protein sources will grow [as financial commodities] faster than meat and seafood, which will begin to wane in coming decades. Global production increases are expected for protein-rich crops including soy, peas, rice, flax, canola and lupin.”

Of course Big Food companies are far too savvy to have just sat back on their heels waiting for the FAIRR report. They’ve already taken a fair few paddles in that particular sea. Campbell’s CEO Denise Morrison gives a figure of $8bn invested in plant-based brands since 2010. That’s quite some paddling!

And the market for protein-rich meat substitutes such as tofu, tempeh, seitan, textured vegetable protein, quorn and so on, is expected to grow by 8.4% a year over the next five years.

That brings us to October 2016 And the big story to hit the news this week is Tyson Foods’ purchase of a 5% share in Beyond Meat. Nearly everything about this story appears, on the surface, astonishing. Tyson Foods is one of the world’s biggest meat companies. And even big meat companies don’t come much more hard-nosed than TFN.

Beyond Meat, on the other hand, is a small independent relative newbie founded by vegan Ethan Brown in 2009 to produce plant-based foods indistinguishable from meat, to replace meat. The latest of BM’s products, the Beyond Burger which ‘bleeds” like meat has been something of a media sensation.

But as I said, Big Food is savvy. On Tuesday, after news broke of Tyson Foods’ investment in BM, its shares on the stock market rose.

“Tyson Foods investing in us, is a sign of progress towards an increasing plant-based future,” tweeted Ethan Brown. You can be sure a giant like TFN will employ the very best futurists (yes, there really is such a job) to predict which way the wind will blow. Ethan’s assessment of the move’s significance is spot on.

It’s the same in Canada. A major Canadian packaged meats company, Maple Leafs Foods, has acquired Lightlife Foods, a company that produces plant-based meat substitutes, including tempeh, burgers, bacon and hot dogs, for $140 million, the deal to be signed in March 2017. President and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods states:

“Expanding into the fast growing plant-based proteins market is one of Maple Leaf’s strategic growth platforms and supports our commitment to become a leader in sustainability. Consumers are increasingly looking to diversify their protein consumption, including plant-based options.”

According to PR Newswire, the plant-based protein market is now “estimated at US$600 million.”

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If animal suffering is not enough of a motivator to make us give up or cut back on meat, we might like to take a look at this article in the New York Times: Close to the Bone – The Fight Over Transparency in the Meat Industry  October 2016

If that is still not enough to tip the balance for us, how about fear of a deadly pandemic arising from antibiotic resistance? Or, remember that 2015 report from Florida International Uni? Meat-eating is the single biggest cause of species extinctions – on the last 40 years we humans have caused the loss of 50% of the wildlife on the planet. Or fear of catastrophic climate change which could see the end of human life itself?

Well, maybe we won’t even have to make that choice for ourselves. Meat will likely become a luxury we can no longer afford.

In any case, I know where the smart money is. It’s backing a plant-based future for food all the way.

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Transitioning your diet could not be easier. The supermarket shelves are stacked full of meat-free products as well as great fresh produce.

If you want to cut back on animal products for the planet, or go vegetarian or vegan, incredibly useful practical tips and recipes found here

And here

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To read an interview with Ethan Brown re Tyson Foods, click here

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Updates

Monday October 17 2016 Free screening of Cowspiracy for UNAIDS in Geneva All welcome

14th July 2017 Canada joins the long list of countries recommending a reduction in meat consumption. The latest official healthy eating guide recommends, “regular intake of vegetables, fruit, whole grains and protein-rich foods, especially plant-based sources of protein.” The milk category has been entirely eliminated, and legumes placed above meat as a source of protein Canada May Tell Its Residents to Ditch Dairy and Choose Plant-Protein Over Meat – One Green Planet

9th October 2017 Belgium new food guidelines follow suit Belgium’s New Food Guidelines Put Vegetables and Plant Proteins On Top – Guess Where Meat Is… – One Green Planet

13th March 2018 Goodbye to German Minister who said “no” to meat at official events But she’s left a great legacy.

10th October 2018 World must slash meat consumption to save climate: study

12th November 2018 Taxing meat would save lives and slow global warming

29th November 2018 Meat and dairy are bad for the climate and the environment, researchers urge

5th December 2018 Beef-eating ‘must fall drastically’ as world population grows

18th January 2019 A major new report has developed a global diet that could improve health and reduce further damage to the planet

5th August 2019 NEW ZEALAND JUST URGED THE ENTIRE COUNTRY TO EAT PLANT-BASED

Sources

German government agency bans meat from official functions – ThinkProgress

Tax Meat Until It’s Too Expensive To Eat, New UN Report Suggests – Technocracy News

Europe Needs to Halve Its Beef Consumption in Order to Meet Its Climate Change Goals – Munchies

China’s plan to cut meat consumption by 50% cheered by climate campaigners – The Guardian

Why meat is unsustainable and what the protein chain of the future might look like – ZME Science

Investors urge food companies to shift from meat to plants – Reuters

Fortune Reveals Why Big Food is Investing in Plant-Based Brands – VegNews

Former Ireland President Tells Young Leaders to Become Vegetarian or Vegan – ClearlyVeg

China continues to eat more and more meat – and that is bad for everyone – Take Part

Major Canadian Meat Company Buys Plant-Based Brand Lightlife Foods – Clearly Veg

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USA: Meat is Murdering American Rivers – Will America Act or Have Another Burger?

German Meat Companies Are Investing in Veg Meats

Extinction is Forever: Why We Need to Change to Save Animals

Big Meat, We’re Making You History

Man, Money & Rhinos – Unravelling the Tangled Knot of Poaching

“We walk around armed at all times. We’re all living 24 hours in a state of readiness. You would start at first light trying to check on all your animals on the reserve, to make sure they’re alive” – Pelham Jones, president of the Private Rhino Owners Association

In 2007, 13 rhino were poached in South Africa. In 2008, 83. Since 2008 poaching has risen by – can you get your head around this? – 8,900%.  And no, I haven’t made a mistake with the noughts. The strange thing is, until that time the white rhino population of the Republic of South Africa was actually increasing. It hardly seems possible. All we hear now is how to save from extinction the iconic African Big Five, one of which is of course, the rhino.

Many in the RSA now believe it’s no coincidence the massive upsurge in poaching suddenly began at just about the time the government decided – amid fears that the domestic trade was delivering poached horns into the hands of international trafficking networks – to impose the moratorium. Back then though, it took rhino protectors by surprise. Pelham Jones again, “We were caught with our pants down. We didn’t think the bad guys would come knocking on our door. We’ve been hit by a tsunami of poaching, and the onslaught is relentless.”

A few facts and figures

• There are 5 species of rhino
• The most abundant species is the southern white rhino of which there are about 20,000, 75% of them in Kruger National Park
• The black rhino is the only other African species, and they are right down to roughly 4,000 – heavily poached in the 70s and 80s and struggling to recover
• There are 3 Asian species, also sadly killed for their horn
• Last year nearly 1200 rhino were poached in RSA across private reserves and national parks
• This tragically makes a poaching rate of 1 rhino every 8 hours
• Rhino horn sells on the Asian black market for the eye-watering price of $65,000, that is £43,000 a kilo
• China and Vietnam are the biggest buyers of rhino horn

Exactly why is rhino horn such a valuable commodity?

It is after all just keratin – like our fingernails and hair. There’s a little bit of calcium in it and a lot of water. It’s just an outgrowth of the skin, and nothing like elephants’ tusks or buffalo horn. Well, it seems the market is as complex as the rest of the knotty rhino problem. Some are used for artefacts like daggers and bracelets. China and Vietnam have used the horn in traditional medicine for thousands of years to ‘treat’ fever, boils, epilepsy and such. But more recently it is the unlucky subject of an urban myth. A rumour went around that rhino horn had cured a top Chinese official of cancer. Not hard to imagine how that bumped up demand. Then because it is so astronomically expensive it’s seen as a desirable status symbol. So you might, for example, want to impress your boss by presenting him with a piece of horn, an expensive gift.

Does rhino horn work as a medicine? There’s slight evidence that it has marginal pain-killing properties – but then if you grind up water buffalo horn, it does just as well. So it’s more likely than not the placebo effect. And it’s not nearly as effective as paracetamol. As for the cancer cure, well …

At £43K a kilo of horn, poaching of the poor rhino continues to escalate. And at £43K a kilo, I suppose it’s not surprising to discover that there are already companies producing synthetic rhino horn which is of course, perfectly legal. Perhaps there’s money to be made with it, but debate continues as to whether synthetic horn  will do anything to keep the rhinos safe.

So what protection methods are being tried?

The rhino in private reserves like Pelham Jones’s are the lucky ones. The animals are much more vulnerable in national and provincial parks. It’s verging on impossible to protect the beasts in Kruger National Park for instance, which covers a vast area, has long open borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and is surrounded by poverty-stricken communities. Corruption in the police, park rangers and government officials also threaten the rhino’s safety. Though their chances are better in the private reserves, the financial, physical and emotional cost to the owners of protecting their animals is bringing them to breaking point.

“We walk around armed at all times. We’re all living 24 hours in a state of readiness. You would start at first light trying to check on all your animals on the reserve, to make sure they’re alive, to check for tracks, to see if your fence hasn’t been cut. You’re working late into the night, you get a tip off or you see a set of vehicle tracks stopped along the fence. Or someone hears a fire crack or a gun shot going off. So your stress levels are skyrocketing all the time. You don’t relax, physically or mentally. 

There’s not a day goes by we’re not out from dusk to dawn through the night patrolling. And this was the hardest thing for me to face,  finding our rhinos and knowing that I’d failed them. That no matter how hard we tried, no matter how many patrols we do, the sleepless nights, the worry, they were still killed.” – Pelham Jones

For his 1000+ rhino, the largest privately-owned herd in the world, John Hume employs even more militaristic methods.

“I’m not giving you the size of my army, but I can tell you it’s far bigger than what I’d like, because it’s more expensive than I’d like. We have many vehicles patrolling all the time. We have a helicopter that flies all night. We are busy installing an early warning system on all of our perimeter fencing which will give an alarm in our ops room when anybody tampers with or climbs the fence.”  The cost of all this? 3 million rand a month just for security – that’s over 1.5m pounds sterling a year.

Apart from keeping a private army like John, how else can the rhino be protected?  

Lynn McTavish made the decision to dehorn her rhino. It’s painless and quite simple. You just hire a qualified vet, a helicopter pilot with helicopter and a capture crew. The rhino is darted, goes down, has its breathing monitored, and is kept cool with water. Removing the horn takes about 15 -20 minutes. The drug is reversed, the rhino wakes up and joins the rest of the herd. Simple. But expensive.

Another equally expensive method but more drastic, is to spoil the horn and make it unsaleable. This is what Linda Hearne  director of the Rhino Rescue Project decided to do.

“So we set about a research project in which we infused the horns of animals with animal-friendly toxins and indelible dyes, and we did that in the presence of local communities and our staff. Because what we found was that 90% of poaching incidents are made possible with inside information. So to have that local community go out spread the message for you that these horns are now off limits has been an extremely valuable tool in our anti-poaching toolbox, and the results we’ve had thus far have been great.”

The problem as always is money. Many of the smaller reserves are struggling to meet the costs of protection. Linda says, “That has been the main challenge, the lack of funding, the lack of government support. And a lot of conservation bodies have come out and said they weren’t willing to assist.”

The same applies in the national parks. For Hendrik Asics, a park ranger in Pellensburg, resources are so limited he sometimes struggles even to feed his tracking dogs. Like so many others he risks his life every day to protect the rhino. “We’re fighting a losing battle at the moment, because we’re losing our rhinos at such a critical, alarming rate. When we walk in the bush and see a rhino that’s been poached, it puts tears in your eyes. It’s heartbreaking.”

So why do the rhino protectors keep doing it?

Because the animal has an appealing, gentle nature. Because of their vulnerability – “there not the smartest kid on the block and 3,4,5,6 animals can be shot easily in one incident.” Because they are an iconic species. Because the African plains will never be the same if they are lost.

Then what is the answer?

In the view of many private owners – the answer would be to lift the moratorium on domestic trade. There are already large stockpiles of legally obtained and confiscated horn which could be made available for sale. John Hume alone has stockpiles of 4,000 kilograms of rhino horn, his investment running into many millions of dollars. The owners want permission to sell, not out of greed, but because they believe it could check the poaching epidemic, and as a bonus, sales of horn would help fund those astronomical protection costs.

Why don’t they do it then?

Because their government has remained consistently opposed to the domestic trade ever since they introduced the ban 8 years ago. (And we’ve seen how well that worked out.)

Last year John Hume along with a colleague brought a case against the government. on the grounds it was their constitutional right as breeders to sell rhino horn. And they won. The judge found in their favour and the ban was overturned.

The government responded by lodging an appeal and re-imposing the moratorium on sales, pending the result. But in January this year, the High Court set the government’s appeal aside. Officially, domestic trade in horn is now legal though no-one has as yet applied for a licence to trade.

“By overturning the domestic ban, rhino owners might want to influence how nations vote at the CITES convention”  – writes Anton Crone for The Daily Maverick.

 
The CITES global ban on trading rhino horn has remained in place since the 1970s. The RSA’s recently published National Treasury Report for Environment Affairs revealed the government’s intention to table a proposal for the lifting of the ban. The proposal will be put before the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)  which meets in Johannesburg this coming September. It will require a two thirds majority to be passed.

If the international ban is lifted in September, will we be able to stop worrying about the rhino?

That is very much open to debate. The private owners lobby hard for the lifting. But many conservationists say that reviving the trade would send the wrong signal to consumers in China and Vietnam, where groups such as Traffic and WildAid are trying to reduce the demand. And how could anyone be certain the traded horn came from legal supplies and not from poaching? Animal welfare organisations such as IFAW, say a legal trade could encourage more poaching by criminal gangs seeking to launder “dirty” horns in clean markets. And if more horn comes on to the market and the price drops, won’t that in turn stimulate demand?

In spite of the questions raised, all interested parties believe a radical new approach is needed, because right now efforts both to reduce demand in the Far East and to tackle illegal killing are simply not working.

And the world cannot afford to keep losing 3 precious rhinos every single day every week every month every year. 

Sign and share Southern African Fight For Rhino petition to CITES

Good news just out on Earth Day :-  the WWF has obtained a grant from Google “to engineer a remarkable new thermal and infrared camera and software system that can identify poachers from afar and alert park rangers of their presence.” Trials are being piloted in Kenya, and if the system proves a success WWF plan to roll it out across Africa. Read more here

The Story Continues to Unfold

The latest news from Care 2 is that South Africa is expected to propose keeping the ban on rhino horn trading in place at the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) at the convention to be held in Johannesburg this September. The recommendation comes from the Committee of Inquiry, which was tasked with advising the government on this issue.

It’s an interesting development since the internal trade in rhino horn has been declared legal by South Africa’s own courts. It looks like a case of ‘watch this space’.

Breaking news April 29th 2016: Swaziland Submits Rhino Horn Trade Proposal for COP17

Swaziland’s rhino horn trade proposal comes less than a year after its controversial sale of 18 of its elephants to three American zoos for $450,000 in order to help fund the country’s rhino conservation efforts (roomforrhinos.org). Read more about this controversial new move in the unfolding story of the South African white rhinos.

May 18th 2016 One man’s plan to save rhinos by airlifting 80 to Australia Focusing on wildlife

May 24th 2016 S Africa”s Supreme Court of Appeal rejected government’s appeal to keep domestic sale ban in place. Sale of rhino horn within S Africa is now legal.

May 24th Meet Chloe – a Belgian Malinois dog receiving anti-poaching training to protect orphaned rhinos in s S African sanctuary. You can donate towards her training at this link.

May 25th 2016 Sudan, Najin and Fatu, the last three northern white rhinos, thought to be incapable of breeding, the species now extinct.  Focusing on Wildlife reports scientists’ attempts to save the species from extinction by harvesting the last eggs from the two remaining females and using advanced reproductive techniques to create embryos. If successful, it would be a world first, but a controversial one. People cannot be allowed to believe that science can always save the day, and right what humans have done wrong to animals and their habitats.

May 25th 2016 US State Department announced a five-year bilateral partnership with Vietnam to combat wildlife trafficking, Vietnam being, with China, the biggest market for rhino horn.

June 8th 2016 South Africa’s domestic rhino horn trade back on ice after Department of Environmental Affairs takes issue to top court – Business Insider

August 19th 2016 France bans all ivory & rhino horn trade – The Ecologist

Sep 11th 2016 SA’s Minister for Environmental Affairs says rhino poaching has decreased by 17.8% in Kruger National Park. The Minister said this in a statement on Sunday on progress in the implementation of the Integrated Strategic Management of Rhinoceros – South African Government News Agency

28th November 2016 Innovative Technology Creates Safe Haven for Rhinos – Focusing on Wildlife

15th February 2017 SOUTH AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS MAKES THE HUGE MISTAKE OF PERMITTING THE RHINO HORN TRADE – Vegan Lifestyle Magazine

18th August 2017 South Africa opposes online rhino horn auction – PhysOrg

21st August 2017 Petition to ask S Africa to stop rhino horn auction

8th January 2018 DNA evidence is putting rhino poachers behind bars, study shows

6th February 2018  World-Renowned Ivory and Rhino Horn Investigator Killed in Kenya

30th October 2018 The terrible news that China has reversed 25-year ban on using rhinoceros horns and tiger bones in medicine

13th November 2018 China postpones lifting the ban on rhino horn and tiger bones

24th November 2018 Sotheby’s latest auction house to end rhino horn sales

14th February 2019 South Africa’s rhino poaching sees ‘significant’ decline, minister says

16th February 2019 Hong Kong seizes $1m of rhino horn in record airport haul & Scientists fine-tune method to save rhinos

Fight for Rhinos

To find out more about the pros and cons of legalisation visit Save the Rhino

To find out about a novel idea to ensure the survival of the species Click here

My main source BBC Radio 4 The Horns of a Dilemma

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