Invited by Greenaccord Cultural Association, the Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) Dr. Zhou Jinfeng visited San Miniato, Italy and attended the 15th Greenaccord International Media Forum held there, from March 7th to 8th.
The intention of the Greenaccord International Media Forum is to, in the form of communicative speeches, facilitate introspection by domestic and international media representatives, inspire opinions and perspectives, and develop meaningful feedback information. This year's forum was themed around "The Earth's Breath: Forests". Around 100 journalists from prestigious media agencies worldwide attended the forum. For those from developing countries, in particular, the Greenaccord Forum is more like an "Educational Cooperation", in that it could provide with them an interactive platform where they would have the precious opportunity to interact with their peers, environmentalists, and experts from other places in the world, on the topic of forests.
Dr. Zhou’s two keynote speeches — “Biodiversity and Forests” and “Facing Reality: Reframing Climate Change as an Immediate Existential Risk” — have aroused interest from the Bulgarian and Pakistan media agencies.
“Our data have revealed that environment-related disasters are on the rise. We understand that both military conflicts and natural disasters will cause damage to nature. But what makes us more worrying is there may be resource-involved military conflicts in the future, because of resource scarcity and demand exceeding supply, as is shown by a study from the Club of Rome. Then a vicious circle may emerge: Resource scarcity leads to problems, which in turn feed into an even severer resource scarcity", said Dr. Zhou in response to questions raised by Pakistan media representative after his talk on "Facing Reality: Reframing Climate Change as an Immediate Existential Risk".
Fully drawn to the pangolin story during the talk of "Biodiversity and Forests", Bulgarian media representative interviewed Dr. Zhou afterward on pangolins' destiny in China.
“Chinese pangolins, as one of the eight genera of pangolin species worldwide, have been announced commercially extinct in China”, replied Dr. Zhou, “this can be primarily attributed to commercial-driven demand for pangolins and their scales. On one hand, pangolin scales are traditionally believed to have medicinal value, so there is a huge demand for them in the Traditional Chinese Medicine market. On the other, pangolin meals are long believed to have health benefits. Yet the fact is that, instead of being good for health, pangolin meals may even be poisonous and harmful". Dr. Zhou explained these two Chinese traditions may be the culprit of rising illegal cases involving pangolins in recent years. "The result is that despite all eight-pangolin species have been enlisted in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), their confiscated numbers still keep rising", added Dr. Zhou.
“Saving pangolins is of profound implications from the forest point of view as well”, Dr. Zhou replied to another question of the relationship between pangolins and forests. “Pangolins feed on termites. Hence their disappearance would certainly lead to an excess of termites in the forests. As a result, villages in southern China have begun to use chemicals to kill termites. Which is bad news because chemical residues will flow into rivers and get deposited in the soil. Eventually, it is human beings and other lives in the ecosystem that will have to bear the cost of this”.
“Have you taken actions to curb this problem? Would the authority be involved as well?” continued the question from the Bulgarian journalist.
“Yes, we have already done much work, but still more work needs to be done”, quickly summarized Dr. Zhou, “Good signs have emerged on the government side. For instance, they have agreed to upgrade pangolins from Class 2 to Class 1 Protected Animals in China. Another is Guangxi authority has agreed to release two pangolins into the wild, which is the first time in history. Both of these are big and exciting movements!”
In terms of what CBCGDF’s work plan for pangolins, Dr. Zhou first emphasized the correction of the two long-held misconceptions on pangolins’ medicinal and nutritional value. “Even though Chinese pangolins may be used as medicines, other pangolin species cannot. Since Chinese pangolins are already commercially extinct, the pharmacies are selling fake medicines.”
CBCGDF's to-do-list also includes removing pangolins from a Chinese medicine classic (i.e. the Chinese Pharmacopoeia), so that there will no longer be a medical basis for using pangolins in TCM. At the end of the view, Dr. Zhou wished a reintroduction of Chinese pangolins may come true in the future. "We would really appreciate it if people in other countries will help us in bringing Chinese pangolins back onto their motherland.”
It is quoted in the official media press by Greenaccord that “If deforestation and climate change remain ineffectively dealt with, the 2050 Year would witness a total of 1 billion migrants forced to leave their homeland”. Indeed, as analyzed by the Emergency Plan from the global think tank The Club of Rome, the largest-scale human migration in history could well be traced back to Global Warming and its accompanied Extreme Events.
(Photo credit: CBCGDF volunteer Gino)
By / Lu Lei