Taiwan Today

Paul Ming-hsien Sun (孫明賢) is the ROC’s top au­thority on wildlife conservation. He has been the chairman of the Council of Agriculture since 1992 and previously served as Commissioner of the Depart­ment of Agriculture and Forestry in the Taiwan Provincial Gov­ernment. Sun met with the Free China Review on May 23 to dis­cuss the status of wildlife conservation in Taiwan. Excerpts follow.

FCR: How do ROC wildlife conservation laws compare with international conventions?

Paul Ming-hsien Sun: In spirit there isn’t a lot of differ­ence. The basic idea is to draft regulations that encourage wildlife conservation and manage­ment as well as set penalties in the form of fines and prison terms for those who break the law. But different countries have variations in content according to their own situations. For example, we deal more with the raising of wild animals by private individuals because this is very common here.

Some countries have special laws covering specific animals. The United States has one spe­cifically for the protection of the bald eagle, which metes out stiffer penalties. These kinds of laws are quite simple, aimed at the protection of a single species. Whales are another example. But we do not have this kind of law. We have a complex, omnibus law—the Wildlife Conservation Law.

If people are not willing to comply, the best law in the world is impossible to administer. Has the Wildlife Conservation Law run into any problems?

Chinese do not have the best record when it comes to obeying the law. But people in a demo­cratic country must abide by the law, otherwise society will collapse into utter chaos. One of the most important principles is that obeying the law begins with the individual. Education and efforts to publicize the law and encour­age law-abiding habits need to be strengthened.

In our current review of the Wildlife Conservation Law, cul­tural attitudes are involved, and therefore it is much more diffi­cult to reach an agreement. Some people say that it isn’t as if they have killed anyone or destroyed property. They can’t understand why killing wild animals is against the law. This is a long­-term cultural attitude, one that has evolved over perhaps thou­sands of years.

Actually, two schools of thought have existed together in Chinese culture. One says, “All the creatures of nature were born along with humans,” and this contains the idea of conserva­tion. But the other is, “All the creatures of nature were born for humans.” This implies that peo­ple are the center of the universe and that everything belongs to mankind. I’m afraid these two statements are an apt description of the current mixed state of affairs.

We also have two strong tra­ditions that do not necessarily ac­cord with conservation. One is the use of health tonics and re­storative medicines. Many peo­ple believe that health tonics should be taken in the winter. Some of these are made with in­gredients from animals, and peo­ple believe that the wilder the animal, the better medicine it makes. Using wild animals to make restorative tonics is a wrong-headed idea. This needs correction.

A more recent tradition is that of raising pets. We used to raise only dogs and cats, or some of the beautiful and charming birds of Taiwan. But in recent years, many pets have been brought in from abroad, in­cluding wild animals. Raising imported wild animals as pets has had two very bad side ef­fects. Off-island species repre­sent a potential threat to the local ecology—and it is no ex­aggeration to say that this is a very serious threat, especially in the case of possible pathogens or parasites that could be intro­duced and spread throughout Taiwan. Some animals can carry diseases common to both man and animals, such as lung dis­eases. Because these animals are not indigenous, we really don’t know very much about these diseases.

Moreover, some people who buy imported pets find that they do not have the ability to raise them, cannot afford to raise them, or are afraid of them. Therefore, they just set them free in the mountains or even in the streets. Some of these animals can be very aggressive.

As to the question of whether the Wildlife Conserva­tion Law can be carried out, this naturally rests in part on the re­solve of the people who enforce the law. The existence of a law is not enough; it must be publicized to let everyone understand that they should obey it, and the pun­ishments under the law have to be severe enough to deter people. The current Wildlife Conserva­tion Law has many regulations, but not many punishments. Without proper penalties, the de­cision whether to obey the law is up to people themselves. The government has no enforcement power.

I’ll give you a simple exam­ple. If you raise wild animals, you are supposed to have them registered. But there is no pun­ishment for failing to do so. Thus, in the draft of the law cur­rently under revision, we want a provision that will set a time limit. After you register them, you can legally possess them, but if you haven’t done so by the due date, we can impound them, refer the case for prosecution, and fine or imprison you. We have to have restraining power, because without it we have no way to deal with those who break the law.

What roles do conservation groups play?

I think that conservation groups, whether domestic or for­eign, at least have the right idea in their ardent calls for plant and animal conservation. They are critical, as is the media, and this is a way to oversee the govern­ment. Most importantly, they help promote conservation ef­forts. Private groups assist the government substantially by helping to publicize the issues and the law. Although conserva­tion groups can be a little zealous in their language sometimes, I think their goals are positive.

In what areas do you hope to see improvement in private conservation organizations?

Every two months, we hold a meeting with conservation groups. More than thirty partici­pate, and we have already met three or four times. By talking things over, we can see what needs to be done. This is great. They are very enthusiastic, espe­cially the Wild Bird Society. This group is the largest and the best organized. They have branch offices all over Taiwan. They are very professional. Un­fortunately, the average group is not professional enough.

I established two conser­vation groups about twelve years ago in Tainan city and county. After a month or two, they began sponsoring events, such as trips to watch the return of migratory birds. This is part of conserva­tion—bird watching and similar activities—and is the kind of ac­tivity that helps the public accept the concept of conservation and make it a habit. Every city and county ought to have this kind of local group. They could sponsor seasonal events in coordination with a central office in Taipei.

In fact, the idea of conserva­tion is already well established in Taiwan, especially among the younger generation. Of course it is more difficult with the older generation, which has habits in­grained over many years. One ex­ample is the use of rhino horn and tiger bone as medicine. Young people wouldn’t think of trying it, or buying it, and people my age wouldn’t either. In reality, there is extremely little use of rhino horn in medicine, at least in Taiwan.

Conservation efforts include legislation, enforcement, and public education. Does the COA have sufficient staffing and fi­nancial resources for these tasks?

Wildlife conservation is the responsibility of the whole gov­ernment. It does not depend solely upon the COA. For domes­tic wildlife conservation, central, provincial, county, and city gov­ernments are all responsible.

But the COA does have more and more conservation duties, and as a result we will expand our conservation section. Con­cerning funding, money is not al­located to a single agency with responsibility for the entire is­land, but is given to the various levels of government. At the same time, other central govern­ment agencies are allocated funds and manpower for conser­vation.

The Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice and the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Administra­tion are also involved in helping to prevent smuggling of wild animal products. So are the customs of­fices around the island. Our con­servation work is an inter-agency affair. The Inter-Ministerial Wild­life Conservation Investigation and Supervisory Task Force [set up on September 3, 1993, to cut the supply and demand for rhino horn and tiger parts] also cuts across departmental lines.

What have been your biggest accomplishments and frustra­tions in promoting wildlife conservation?

My greatest sense of accom­plishment has to be my involve­ment in setting up the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Insti­tute (TESRI) in 1992 [see story, p.38]. It is the main conservation research center for endemic flora and fauna. We discovered at the time that the interest in conserv­ing plants and animals was al­ready very strong. We had never done a comprehensive survey and study of our domestic re­sources. This is very important, especially for plants. We have many plants being put to many different uses, as food for humans and as raw materials for many things.

But research may reveal some new variety of plant that could be used in medicine. The use of plants in medicine is highly developed in China. We don’t know if Taiwan has plants with medicinal value. But there are many primitive plants, so it is very possible that this kind of re­source exists.

Actually, Taiwan has abun­dant flora and fauna. These are extremely valuable resources, and with good management we can conserve them and use them for experimentation and re­search. TESRI will promote coop­eration in these areas both domestically and internationally. I’m sure it will play an active role on the international stage in the future.

As for frustrations, the big­gest is the failure of people to obey the law. The reason we re­ceive so much international criticism is not just for using rhino horn in medicine, but also for the smuggling of wild ani­mals and animal products. The rhino is in immediate danger of extinction—there are only ten thousand left in the world. And there are only four or five thou­sand tigers, so these animals could disappear very quickly. In the case of the rhinoceros, there were 100,000 just twenty years ago, so poaching is extremely serious.

Besides Chinese medicine, rhino horn is also used for art works, carvings, and knife han­dles in the Middle East. In real­ity, medicine represents just a small fraction of the total con­sumption. The market in rhino products has to be shut down completely to close off demand.

Taiwan people are also criti­cized for illegal hunting in Af­rica. They have been found in several of the groups caught red­ handed. Without effective con­trols, this killing will continue.

But even if we stopped all rhino horn use here, the killing would continue, because poach­ers and smugglers would just store the horn for sale later. Thus, conservation in the countries of origin is the most important con­cern. Of course, these countries are all relatively backward, and there are still people willing to take the risk for the money. The attitude reminds one of the origi­nal “great white hunters” who killed elephants for ivory.

Are foreign reports on the sta­tus of Taiwan’s wildlife conser­vation work fair?

The issue of wildlife conser­vation has become emotionally charged and sometimes unrea­sonable. We can understand why conservation groups become emotional, but sometimes their information is inaccurate with regard to time and content. For example, one group that recently advertised in The New York Times ran a picture of a tiger be­ing killed in Taiwan. But that picture was taken ten years ago. How can they use it now? And the text of the ad was deliberately vague about time. If that were fair, then no one should object if we ran pictures of Americans and Europeans hunting elephants from a previous time. Obviously, this is not fair. People should stick to the current facts.

At the same time, few if any conservation groups have re­ported on our efforts here to promote better wildlife conser­vation. As a result, their reports are not balanced. We have pro­vided them with a lot of informa­tion, but they say in their statements that we haven’t done so. This is very frustrating. But the crux of the matter is, do peo­ple check on the accuracy of the information they receive on the status of Taiwan’s wildlife con­servation? The U.S. government should actually check to see if the information supplied by con­servation groups is more accu­rate than what we provide.

I’ll give another example having to do with the accuracy of information. There was a recent report that said the sale of rhino horn in Taiwan for Chinese medi­cine was extremely common­place. But we have to argue with the method used to draw this con­clusion. The group phoned Chi­nese medicine shops and asked if they had any rhino horn for sale. There is a cultural dimension here. For a Chinese person doing busi­ness, even if they didn’t have any they would certainly say they had. It’s a Chinese way of replying­—never say no to a customer. Per­haps one out of ten would actually have some, but all ten would say they had.

International conservation groups also come to Taiwan and ask people here to help them conduct checks on Chinese medicine shops. But we have doubts about their sampling methods. One group recently asked forty shops—but there are nine thousand Chinese pharma­cies around the island. Thus, their sample size is questionable, and this makes their results equally open to question. These are two areas in which we feel foreign conservation groups have been unfair.