The Asian Financial Crisis and the Wildlife Trade
The sale of forest products, especially wild animals and plants, has been the traditional means by which marginal rural groups could generate cash. More recently, it has provided a way to participate in the global market economy. Having struggled for many years to survive, these rural dwellers are eager to catch up and partake of the prosperity they see via satellite television. With few economic alternatives, they view the forest, and all the animals and plants therein, as the key to prosperity.
By DEANNA DONOVAN
The huge and growing Chinese market is a major factor in the exploitation of Southeast Asian and southwestern Chinese forests. China has a population of almost 1.3 billion, more than five times that of all of mainland Southeast Asia; an estimated economic growth rate of about 8 percent, more than that of any Western country; and an emerging class of young professionals 70 million consumers now able to pay for good health and good living. As much as 40 percent of the population is said to use traditional medicines, and Western-style pharmaceuticals are not always available. Many prefer products from wild sources.In addition to being an important market, China is also a major processor of wild products. According to official statistics the United States, the European Union, and Japan account for 60 percent by value of wildlife imports world-wide. Total US imports of medicinal and culinary plant products recorded in 1995 amounted to 12.5 tons valued at US$42 million. China was the main source of those products.
Desperate suppliers
The need for cash continues to grow. Governments reeling from the financial crisis and trying to conform to the demands of the IMF have cut social services. Prices of imports have shot up and local prices have risen on their coattails. With limited options, people increasingly look to forest product sales to generate cash, and the result is a growing threat to the ecosystem.
Much of the forest that is commercially exploited for wild animal and plant products is located in relatively remote areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups whose economies still depend largely on shifting cultivation and the collection of forest products. For many of these people, the forest has long served as an essential source of basic needs including fuel, food, fibres, construction timber, and medicinal plants. With economic liberalization, improved transportation, and the development of markets that are linked to the international economy, the forest has taken on an enhanced economic dimension: it is the source of an array of products for which there is steady demand and a now even more accessible market. These products can be bartered or sold for the cash needed to pay taxes or school fees or to purchase necessities, including food in the 'hungry season' after harvest stores are exhausted. As one observer noted, it seems that 'every tree and animal has a potential price tag in the local, regional, or international market place' (Rabinowitz, 1997). In short, it is not a tiger with all its ecological associations that the farmer sees, but a ticket to a better life. Now, thanks in part to currency fluctuations, the collector must often collect twice as many forest products to be able to obtain the same amount of store-bought goods as before the economic crisis. Meanwhile, traders profit handsomely as currency devaluation lowers the real price to the farmer despite often higher prices paid by consumers as a result of increasing scarcity.
Local substitutes
In addition to creating an increased demand for cash, the economic crisis has driven people to find substitutes for products they can no longer afford. In the case of pharmaceuticals, for instance, national governments cannot produce enough to meet local needs. Devaluations have driven the prices of foreign-manufactured drugs too high for most people. Governments, which must allocate scarce foreign exchange for their imports, are encouraging people to consider using traditional medicines. So people either exploit their local forests to raise cash or return to the use of native plants for medicinal purposes. Either way, in the absence of sustainable cultivation systems, the environment suffers.
A clear picture of the wild species trade and its impact is difficult to obtain given the wide variety of animals and plants exploited, the lack of monitoring at virtually any level, and trade statistics for forest products that do not distinguish between those from domesticated or semi-domesticated sources (essentially former forest products now grown in plantation systems, such as cinnamon) and those from wild sources.
Regulations
Policies to protect endangered species, on the books for nearly a decade or more in most countries of Southeast Asia, are poorly enforced. A treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), was instituted in 1973 with the goal of preventing international trade from threatening survival of species in the wild. CITES establishes a regulatory system for controlling wildlife trade that is implemented by domestic legislation in member nations. As of May 1998, 144 countries and parties had signed the treaty. CITES accords varying degrees of protection to wild species, both plant and animal, depending on their status as determined by scientific authorities and agreed by the signatories. For instance, species listed on CITES Appendix I are those determined to be threatened with extinction and very likely to be significantly affected by trade; thus, they are banned from trade between members. Most of the countries in Southeast Asia (including Indonesia) joined CITES in the late seventies or early eighties.*
Another crisis
Government officials in most countries realize that the uncontrolled trade in forest products is a threat not only to the region's environmental heritage, but also to government income, both present and future. Clandestinely exported products avoid taxes and rob all levels of government of much-needed revenues. And when species are depleted beyond the point at which it is profitable to harvest them, both individuals and institutions risk losing a base for potential development, whether as a product through domestication or as a commercial service via tourism. The major plantation crops rubber, tea, cacao, coffee, and oil palm are former forest species that through management and genetic selection have become major economic contributors. (For many species we can only hypothesize the extent to which early over-exploitation may have degraded the gene pool, possibly to the point where commercial domestication was no longer possible.) When domestication has not been possible, proper management of wildlife has enabled a very profitable tourist industry to develop; for example, photo safaris or big-game hunting.
As a result of increasing international pressure, governments have attempted to strengthen enforcement of regulations against wildlife trafficking. Conflicting pressures on the implementing field staff, including their own increasingly poor financial situation as well as that of their rural neighbors, make stringent application of rules and regulations difficult. Suppliers must be more clever and more careful in their subterfuge, often 'compensating' officials for looking the other way as illegal merchandise passes under their noses. These increased risks and 'transaction costs' often contribute to higher prices for the consumer but, conversely, lower prices paid to harvesters of wild products. As a consequence, to meet their own growing income requirements, these farmer-collectors must sell more and more forest products.
Given the fiscal restraints imposed by international financial institutions, Southeast Asian governments are hard-pressed to find the money needed to research and implement cultivation and wildlife management systems that will permit the sustainable harvesting of forest plants and animals. Meanwhile, the pressing economic needs of current and returning rural inhabitants may preclude the possibility of future forest product development, especially if attempts at increased regulation with associated transaction costs actually promote increased exploitation of forest resources.
Conclusions
New economic pressures on the people of Southeast Asia and southwestern China are accelerating the exploitation of rare and endangered forest plants and animals. The wild species trade threatens biological resources that are important from an ecological as well as an economic perspective. The cultural damage resulting from the environmental destruction is even more complicated to assess and address. Rising prosperity and the globalization of the market economy have been major forces fuelling the process of extinction. Now, increasing economic hardships may pose the greatest threat. Clearly, the market for wild species is subject both to the pull of demand as well as the push of suppliers desperate for cash and eager to participate in the new market economy. The continuation of present trends will in all likelihood lead to the local extinction of several species.
* The CITES Secretariat co-operates with TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce), which has offices world-wide and provides reports and analysis. Based in Washington, D.C., TRAFFIC maintains a website: www.traffic.org. Other international NGOs working to support CITES (www.cites.org/) include the following: FFI Fauna & Flora International (www.ffi.org.uk/welcome_to_ffi.htm) IUCN The World Conservation Union (www.iucn.org/) WCMC World Conservation Monitoring Centre (www.wcmc.org.uk/programmes/) WWF World Wide Fund for Nature (www.panda.org/home.htm)
References
Donovan, Deanna G.
Policy Issues Of Transboundary Trade In Forest Products In Northern Vietnam, Lao PDR, And Yunnan PRC
Proceedings of a Workshop held in Hanoi, Vietnam, September 14-20, 1997, Honolulu: East-West Center, 1998, Vol. 1
Rabinowitz, Alan
Lost World Of The Annamites
Natural History Journal 4:14-18, 1997
Robbins, C.
Us Medicinal Plant Trade Studies
TRAFFIC Bulletin 16(3): 121-125, 1997
Dr Deanna Donovan is attached to the East-west Center, University of Hawai'i. She can be reached at donovand@ewc.hawaii.edu.