EFFORTS to stamp out the illegal trade in endangered species suffered a blow
last week with the disclosure that medicines containing body parts from tigers,
rhinos and leopards are widely available across North America.

A survey by TRAFFIC鈥攚hich monitors the trade in wildlife鈥攐f 110
Chinese stores in New York, Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto, San Francisco, Atlanta
and Los Angeles found that half sold medicines containing, or claiming to
contain, species in which it is illegal to trade. Almost all the medicines were
made in China, which officially banned the manufacture and sale of tiger and
rhino derivatives in 1993.

Judy Mills, director of TRAFFIC East Asia, asks: 鈥淎re these old stocks or has
a black-market industry started up in China or elsewhere? The tiger and some
rhino species are too close to extinction for us to be guessing at the
补苍蝉飞别谤蝉.鈥�

Previous investigations by TRAFFIC uncovered tiger-bone preparations for sale
in Europe, Asia and Australasia, indicating that the illicit trade is taking
place across the world. The organisation says that inadequate legislation and
poor enforcement are to blame.

In the US, for example, it is illegal to import products containing the parts
of protected species. But customs must prove that products contain endangered
animals before impounding them, even if they are labelled as such. Because
forensic techniques cannot detect derivatives such as ground-up tiger bone,
there have been few prosecutions. And once a product has been imported it can be
traded internally.

TRAFFIC wants the US and Canada to make it illegal even to claim that a
product contains endangered species. This is already the law in Britain, Hong
Kong and China.

A MOLE RAT that is considered a pest in China could help save the tiger from
extinction. Chinese medical researchers claim that bones of the mole rat, of
which there are some 200 million in China, have the same effect as tiger bones
in treatments for arthritis and rheumatism. The substitute has been endorsed by
authorities in Beijing.

Tiger bones and other endangered animal parts have been used in traditional
medicines for thousands of years. The illegal trade has had a severe impact on
tigers in the wild, which now number just 5000. Chinese authorities began
looking for alternatives decades ago.

The breakthrough was revealed at a symposium in Hong Kong last week organised
by TRAFFIC East Asia, which monitors trade in wildlife, and the Chinese
University of Hong Kong. Judy Mills, director of TRAFFIC East Asia, says: 鈥淎t
the end of the day, whatever China says works in traditional medicine is what
the world will take as gospel.鈥� A second substitute, an amalgam of bones from
domestic animals such as pigs, dogs and sheep, is still being kept under wraps
by China鈥檚 Ministry of Public Health.

Another animal threatened by Chinese medicine is the musk deer. A substitute
for musk was approved by Beijing in 1993.

Conservationists hope that all the substitutes will be listed in the
pharmacopoeia of Chinese traditional medicines, the next edition of which is due
in 2001.

DISEASE and death will increase steeply among China鈥檚 city dwellers unless
the country tackles its growing air pollution problems, warns the World
Bank.

The bank鈥檚 report on the environment in East Asia, released last week, is the
most detailed yet on the downside of China鈥檚 recent economic boom. It claims
that if urban air pollution continues to grow at current rates, the number of
premature deaths in China will increase from 218 000 to 850 000 a year, cases of
chronic bronchitis from 2 million to 7.4 million and bouts of respiratory
symptoms from 6 billion to 22 billion by 2020. The authors, who based their
research on statistics from the Chinese government and independent research
institutes, say China must invest now in clean engine technologies for cars and
less polluting fuels for heating or face a crisis early next century.

China relies heavily on coal. Although its large industries and power plants
are decreasing their emissions of particulate matter or holding them steady,
emissions from domestic cooking and heating fuels in cities are
increasing鈥攎ost small boilers used by households are old and highly
inefficient. Levels of suspended particulates and sulphur dioxide in Chinese
cities rank among the highest in the world.

In 11 large Chinese cities looked at in the study鈥攊ncluding Beijing,
Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin and Chengdu鈥攑articulates from coal
burning cause more than 50 000 premature deaths and 400 000 cases of chronic
bronchitis a year. The cost of damage caused by air pollution in all Chinese
cities already exceeds 20 per cent of the total income of city dwellers.

Richard Ackermann, the World Bank鈥檚 environmental manager for Asia and a
joint author of the study, says China faces a bigger challenge than its
neighbours because of its extensive use of coal. 鈥淭he biggest problem in China
is the state-owned enterprises. They will have to be restructured, privatised or
closed down and the social costs will be enormous, so it will not happen
辞惫别谤苍颈驳丑迟.鈥�

He says that the Chinese government understands the problem and has already
taken steps to reduce air pollution in the larger cities. The World Bank points
out that the problem could be greatly reduced by investing about 1 per cent of
the country鈥檚 annual GDP in reducing pollution over the next 25 years. It says
that China should use cleaner coal and rely more on gas, as well as introduce
stricter maintenance programmes for vehicles, lower the sulphur content of fuel,
introduce clean engine technology and use liquefied petroleum gas instead of
coal.

The World Bank鈥檚 prognosis is backed up by a study released this week by the
Regional Institute of Environmental Technology in Singapore, which lists acid
rain, lung disease and polluted drinking water as among the worst side effects
of China鈥檚 recent economic success.

Yong-Yuan Yin, who is studying air pollution at Hong Kong University, says
that even if China鈥檚 air pollution does not reach the levels predicted by the
World Bank, there is no doubt that the situation is worsening. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a dilemma
between environmental and economic goals,鈥� says Yin.

AROUND 95 per cent of the world鈥檚 coral reefs have been damaged by overfishing, dynamiting, poisoning, pollution or ships鈥� anchors, the first global survey has found.

Reef Check, which was carried out over the summer at 300 sites in the Caribbean, the Indo-Pacific region and the Red Sea, reveals that fish and shellfish that were once common on reefs have been decimated on the majority of them. Gregor Hodgson, coordinator of Reef Check and a marine biologist at the Institute for Environment and Sustainable Development at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, describes the results as extremely alarming. 鈥淪ince 1990, divers have reported rapidly increasing damage to reefs all over the world, but there has been little supporting scientific data,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow we have evidence that coral reefs are being plundered on a global basis.鈥�

The survey was carried out by 750 volunteer divers and 100 marine biologists. On each reef, teams examined an area of coral larger than a football pitch. They checked numbers of 20 key species, such as grouper and lobsters, and looked for evidence of coral damage, from sewage pollution, cyanide fishing and anchor destruction.

The worst affected reefs were in the Indo-Pacific region, where demand for reef fish鈥攁 gourmet delicacy particularly in Hong Kong and southern China鈥攈as denuded reefs of many large species. Napoleon or humphead wrasse were completely absent from 85 per cent of reefs in the region. Indeed, only 26 of these fish were found in all the Indo-Pacific reefs surveyed. Worldwide, there were no lobsters at 81 per cent of reefs. And 40 per cent of reefs had no grouper larger than 30 centimetres. 鈥淐oral reefs on a global basis have been pretty well wiped out as far as these high-value edible species go,鈥� says Hodgson. 鈥淭he results are very shocking.鈥�