An Introduction
In this special issue of the newsletter, we focus on the wildlife trade with specific reference to Asia. We bring together a number of Asianist scholars, mainly anthropologists, focusing on the market for wildlife products.
By John Knight
The international trade in wildlife products is the source of considerable public controversy. Asian demand for wildlife products threatens wildlife populations in Asia and beyond Asia. The wildlife products market, especially that for medicinal uses, attracts enormous criticism. The exotic and apparently bizarre nature of many of the products traded tiger penis, rhino horn, deer foetus, snake faeces, etc. often lead Western critics to ridicule the trade.Two recent critics of the Asian demand for tiger penises openly wonder 'what you are supposed to do with it sleep with it under your pillow, carry it around in your pocket, eat it, or just fondle it?' (Moulton and Sanderson 1997: 68). One of the challenges for those who study Asian societies and cultures is to explain the importance of the wildlife trade for Asian peoples not just its economic importance for those who supply and trade the products, but also the value (curative value, display value, etc.) attributed to the products by those who consume them.
The contributors to this issue tell of vulnerable, diminishing, and disappearing wildlife populations in Asia: orang-utans and songbirds in Kalimantan; turtles, sea cucumbers, and sharks in the Aru islands; and bears throughout Asia. The contributors approach the topic from a number of perspectives, including those of the producer, the middleman, and the consumer.
The producer's (i.e. hunter's) perspective on the wildlife trade is documented in the papers by Wadley, Eghenter, and Donovan. Wadley and Eghenter offer reports from Kalimantan, of hunters supplying the wildlife products market. Eghenter draws attention to the distinctions to be made between the small scale traditional wildlife trade and the large scale modern trade which threatens wildlife species. She argues that the local wildlife trade was sustainable and that customary hunting restrictions may in fact be more effective than (unenforceable) national legal regulations. In a warning about the likely consequences of the recent Asian economic crisis, Donovan points out that, while the crisis might be expected to depress demand for wildlife products, it may also induce cash-strapped hunters to harvest even more wildlife products in a bid to mitigate the harsh conditions they face.
A number of papers make reference to the middlemen involved in the wildlife trade. In her outline of the wildlife trade on the Aru islands, Osseweijer points out that while Bugis and Macassans used to be the principal middlemen, they have been replaced by Indonesian Chinese who now monopolize the trade. Osseweijer and Wadley each give examples of Chinese middlemen traders in the Aru islands and Kalimantan respectively. Local hunters (in Kalimantan) and fishermen (in Aru) procure wildlife products for the Chinese market, products which they tend not to use themselves.
Wildlife is consumed as meat, as medicine, and as pets. Persoon points out how demand for the meat of the wild pig (often considered a delicacy) in different parts of Southeast Asia has made the animal an object of conservationist concern, despite its reputation as a fast breeder. Knight shows how the market appeal of bear gall and other wildlife products in Japan is linked to their forest provenance, according to which the pristine forest is viewed as generating superior products. Also on the theme of bear gall, Mills et al. report on the demand for bear gall among South Koreans. Attention is often directed to this medicinal demand for wildlife. However, Puri, in his paper points out that demand for wildlife may also inhere in status competition among local elites among which songbirds figure as a natural symbol of social status.
This collection of short reports is offered as no more than a preliminary engagement with the wildlife trade, one of the most important issues faced by humanity, a species which, post-Rio, is ostensibly committed to defending the biodiversity of the planet. We believe that much more research needs to be done both to document the actual extent of the wildlife trade and its effects on wildlife populations, and to document the character of the human involvement in it in different societies and cultures. In drawing attention in this newsletter to the wildlife trade in Asia, and to some of the issues it raises, we hope that our reflections below might help to stimulate, among Asianist colleagues and others, more research in this area. *
Reference
Moulton, Michael P. and James Sanderson, Wildlife Issues In A Changing World, Delray Beach,
FL: St. Lucie Press, 1997
Dr John Knight was an IIAS research fellow from 1 September 1996 to 1 September 1999. He is now Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the Queen's University of Belfast. E-mail: J.Knight@qub.ac.uk.