Understanding China's wildlife markets : Trade and tradition in an age of pandemic World Development Zhu, Annah; Zhu, George https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105108 This article is made publicly available in the institutional repository of Wageningen University and Research, under the terms of article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, also known as the Amendment Taverne. This has been done with explicit consent by the author. Article 25fa states that the author of a short scientific work funded either wholly or partially by Dutch public funds is entitled to make that work publicly available for no consideration following a reasonable period of time after the work was first published, provided that clear reference is made to the source of the first publication of the work. This publication is distributed under The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) 'Article 25fa implementation' project. 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For questions regarding the public availability of this article please contact [email protected] World Development 136 (2020) 105108 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev Viewpoint, Policy Forum or Opinion Understanding China’s wildlife markets: Trade and tradition in an age of pandemic ⇑ Annah Zhu a, , George Zhu b a Wageningen University, The Netherlands b Double Bind Media, USA article info abstract Article history: Environmentalists have long been concerned about the rate at which China is consuming and trading in threatened and endangered wildlife. The recent COVID-19 global pandemic has made wildlife consump- tion an issue that concerns everyone around the world. Formerly obscure practices like wet markets and Keywords: commodities like pangolin scales or bear bile have gained international notoriety. Along with that atten- Wildlife trade tion has come increasing politicization and ideological polarization. Beyond the global fight against the Asia pandemic, there has been another global struggle over the meaning and origin of the disease, as evi- China denced by the spread of terms like ‘‘Wuhan Flu” and ‘‘bat soup.” What has become obscured by the news COVID-19 cycle struggling to keep up with the rapid spread of the virus and the political sound and fury surround- Endangered species Globalization ing it is any meaningful understanding of China’s wildlife consumption and trade. Deeply ingrained in Chinese culture and history, the wildlife trade is not going away anytime soon. Despite a national ban, already wet markets are returning across China. Addressing the wildlife trade in China, we argue, requires first understanding it. Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The link between wildlife and pandemics is simultaneously the other, obscures a more significant cause and a more relevant obvious and contested. Ebola, Zika, SARS, and many other infec- dynamic to viral spread – namely, globalization. Transmission of tious diseases all spread through human-environment interac- infectious disease to humans is one thing, global spread is another. tions. Initially, pristine wilderness teeming with diverse species Wet markets in China, for example, date back millennia, but only in was considered to be the breeding ground of these diseases the past two decades have they become connected to ski resorts in (Vidal, 2020).1 The recent COVID-19 pandemic, however, seems to the Italian alps, cruise ships in the South Pacific, and megachurches demonstrate the opposite: that infectious disease can proliferate in in South Korea via international trade and travel. Globalization – or spaces of intense human-wildlife interaction, such as the now infa- rather, ‘‘hyper-globalization” (Rodrik, 2017) – is the force driving mous Wuhan wet market thought to be the origin of the outbreak. the spread of pandemic to every country on Earth. In the case of It confirms a growing suspicion that human exploitation of wilder- COVID-19, the ‘‘cause” then – if one could be pinpointed at all – ness and deforestation – not pristine forests – contribute to viral out- is not an inauspicious ‘‘bat soup” somewhere in Wuhan, but rather breaks (Rulli, Santini, Hayman, & D’Odorico, 2017, Olivero et al., our hyper-globalized world. 2020). The take-away, then, is to keep forests intact and humans To identify globalization as a ‘‘cause” of global pandemic is, in and wilderness separate (Scientific American, 2020, Trent, 2020). a way, stating the obvious. But recognizing COVID-19 as a global Shifting the culprit of global pandemic from intact wilderness at phenomenon – and a product of a hyper-globalized world – also one extreme, to deforestation and human-wildlife interaction at reinforces the need to address it globally. Global problems, after all, call for global solutions. Yet, the responses seen thus far are more likely to proffer isolationism, politicization, and ideological ⇑ Corresponding author. polarization – all of which conjure anti-globalization sentiment E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Zhu). without any productive consideration of what contemporary 1 This was one of the take-always from the Ebola outbreak in 1996, which was forms of globalization should indeed look like. Governments thought to have originated from chimpanzees hunted in the forest. Many believed that Ebola outbreaks occurred in intact forests, where bushmeat hunting was still a around the world are now asking, some louder than others: possibility because, well, there was still bushmeat (Herman, 2014). ‘‘I don’t think it what should be done with China? How to extract concessions? has anything to do with deforestation,” a lead virologist at the Development Research In terms of the environment, many are demanding that Chinese Institute commented in response to the outbreak (Vidal, 2004). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105108 0305-750X/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 2 A. Zhu, G. Zhu / World Development 136 (2020) 105108 authorities stop the trade and consumption of wildlife altogether golin – an endangered mammal suggested to be linked to the (Mukpo, 2020). transmission of COVID-19 to humans – provides a prime example. Demanding reparations from China, or the cessation of the Pangolin scales can sell for nearly $800 per kilogram, higher than wildlife trade, is a highly antagonistic rather than collaborative the price of silver (Challender, Harrop, & MacMillan, 2015). To be global response. Curtailing the wildlife trade in China and securing sure, the rarity and exoticism of the pangolin contributes to the wet markets against future pandemics requires first understanding value they command on the market, but the greater factor is their why the trade persists despite trenchant international opposition. perceived value as a prized ingredient in traditional Chinese This, in turn, requires grappling with cultural, historical, and philo- medicine. sophical dimensions that are only superficially acknowledged The speculative dimensions of markets for endangered species within environmental debates. are poorly documented if not entirely ignored in Western media, Working toward this deeper understanding, we highlight three but need to be understood if wildlife consumption is to be cur- facets of China’s wildlife trade often overlooked in Western media tailed. This is especially urgent given the fact that trade restrictions and scholarship, but that are vital to understanding its dynamics can have the unintended consequence of artificially driving and persistence: (1) the fundamental importance of traditional demand higher given conditions of market speculation (Biggs, Chinese medicine in everyday life in China, (2) the speculative Courchamp, Martin, & Possingham, 2013, Zhu 2017, 2018, 2020a, aspect of demand for rare wildlife, and (3) the reliance on captive b). Total bans can only be effective if they come from within China breeding as a conservation tool for preventing species extinction. and are perceived as well-enforced and permanent, rather than Together, these three factors illustrate China’s wildlife trade not internationally imposed (Harvey, Alden, & Wu, 2017). This was from the perspective of environmentalists with the mission to stop the case with China’s ivory ban in 2017, a success by most stan- it, but from the perspective of hundreds of millions of people fol- dards (WWF 2019). While a comprehensive ivory ban was more lowing millennia-old traditions in our contemporary, hyper- feasible because ivory is not an ingredient in traditional Chinese globalized society. They show why wildlife trade and consumption medicine, successful bans on traditionally consumed wildlife are will likely persist despite the