NEWS RELEASE

ACTCM President Speaks in Front of Congress 

on Global Ban of Tiger Products

Washington The Bush Administration told Congress last Thursday that it will work to oppose the lifting of China's 14-year-old ban on domestic tiger trade at next month's meeting of 171 nations at the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES). The Unites States favors maintaining a global ban on products made from tigers, which have been hunted heavily for their skins and for use in traditional medicines that treat illnesses such as rheumatism and arthritis.

It is critical that the United States and other important partners of China speak up for tigers at the CITES conference in June, said Judy  Mills of the International Tiger Coalition. It is even more important that countries with wild tigers, such as India, let China know how important its trade ban is for survival of their tigers.

Chinese businesses, such as wealthy, well-connected investors behind tiger farms in China that breed tigers for profit, are pressuring the Chinese government to lift its successful ban on the trade of tiger parts. The two largest such farms in China are in Harbin and Guilin, and have as many as 2,000 tigers in captivity. These investors are stockpiling tiger carcasses in the hopes that they can overturn the ban and rekindle demand for tiger bone medicine and other products made from tigers, which have been in decline since the 1993 ban went into effect. Many believe that the Chinese government is being urged to lift the ban by constituents who stand to gain economically, as much as billions of dollars, as a result.

China's ban is significant, because it is the world's largest consumer of tiger parts. According to researchers, one hundred years ago there were eight different kinds of tigers, with over 100,000 wild tigers in the world. Today, there are only five tiger subspecies left and there are fewer than 5,000 wild tigers in the world. Authorizing China's tiger trade would not only create a legal market for the tiger farms that already exist in China, but more importantly, would provide a cover for poached tiger products to enter the market.

Lixin Huang, president of the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco, has been actively involved in tiger conservation as it relates to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) since 1997. Huang testified Thursday in front of Congress that since the ban, Chinese medicine practitioners have been able to successfully treat patients without using tiger products. She also noted that if the ban were overturned, the growing popularity of Chinese medicine around the world could be bad news for tigers.

Chinese medicine serves a very large population, about 1.4 billion people in China alone. Therefore, if this trade is opened, the demand will be tremendous and a threat to the wild tigers is huge, Huang said.

Huang noted that although the TCM community did not initially embrace the ban on the medicinal use of tiger parts, TCM specialists and conservationist have worked hard to research and develop viable alternatives. Today, the field of TCM embraces effective, sustainable alternatives to tiger bone. TCM colleges in the United States and China no longer teach the use of tiger mode as medicine, and legitimate, law-abiding TCM practitioners around the world no longer use, or desire to use, tiger bone.

Huang is convinced that the field of TCM has an obligation to do its part in saving wild tigers. TCM is based on maintaining the human body's natural balance, and so it should follow that it does the same in maintaining the earth's biodiversity. China's ban on trade in tiger products is essential for securing a future for wild tigers, but also in securing the reputations of the TCM community and China herself as good citizens of the world, Huang said.

In 1999, the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine joined with China's State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to host the Healthy People, Healthy Planet conference in Beijing, China. This conference solidified the working relationship between those working in the fields of TCM and conservation in securing a future for wild tigers.

ACTCM's partnership with WWF has developed a public outreach initiative on endangered species used in traditional medicine, and represents an important conservation milestone. The college and WWF have achieved great success in reaching key communities in a way that is culturally sensitive and scientifically sound. This is the first systematic effort to educate conservationists about traditional Chinese medicine in health care and to educate TCM users in North America about endangered species.

ACTCM and WWF organized the "Saving the Tiger" symposium held in San Francisco in 1998 and the "Healthy People, Healthy Planet Conference on TCM and Wildlife Conservation" in Beijing, People's Republic of China in 1999. The latter conference was supported by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the "Save the Tiger Fund" from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Johnson and Johnson, and other foundations. These events brought together TCM specialists, conservationists, law enforcement officials and CITES experts, and TCM retailers to address wildlife conservation.

On December 5, 2005, Save the Tiger Fund (STF), a program of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, entered into a three-year agreement with the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) in Beijing, and the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) in San Francisco, to conduct a global campaign against the use of tiger bone as a medicine and tonic. WFCMS is a quasi-governmental NGO attached to the State Administration for Traditional Chinese Medicine and has 147 member associations in China and around the world, giving it the power to bring together the entire industry that has for centuries posed a threat to wild tigers.

For more information on TCM's s role in wild tiger conservation, or China's ban on tiger parts, please contact (415) 355-1601 x12.