Rhinoceros horn and Traditional Chinese Medicine: demand in China

Abstract

Illegal wildlife trade and poaching threaten the survival of rhino species. Poaching rates in Africa have risen alarmingly over the last decade. Poachers target rhino because of the high price of horn on the black market. Demand is fueled by the use of rhino horn in cultural, social and medicinal applications in Asia. China is a major source of demand, where the use of rhino horn in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) dates back millennia.Currently, the global approach to rhino conservation is centered on banning trade. International trade has been banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) since 1977. China shut down its domestic trade in 1993 and outlawed all further medicinal use. However, the rise in demand and poaching since 2007 has called into question the effectiveness of existing measures.Some conservationists have suggested a legal and regulated trade as an alternate solution, to be supplied through dehorning live rhino or mass producing bioengineered synthetics. This has sparked a contentious, ongoing debate and has deadlocked policymaking. Proposals put forth by several rhino range states for CITES to permit some international trade have all been rejected. However, in October 2018, the Chinese government unilaterally decreed that it will reopen its domestic trade and permit rhino horn use in certain clinical settings.My thesis contributes empirical research into rhino horn demand in China, which is urgently needed to inform policymaking and improve conservation outcomes. It opens with an introduction of the problem and the knowledge gap in Chapter 1. To establish a deeper contextual understanding of the problem, Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to reviewing interdisciplinary literature. Chapter 4 presents a methodological guide for the cross-cultural adaptation of study instruments in conservation research, based on the robust procedure I applied to translate measurement tools for data collection. Chapters 5 through 8 report on empirical data I collected through interviews with 84 TCM practitioners and an online survey of 2,188 TCM consumers in China’s Guangdong province. Chapter 9 concludes my thesis with a discussion of the policy implications and limitations of my research.Both of my literature review chapters aim to influence policy and improve conservation outcomes, particularly as related to rhino conservation. Chapter 2 explores the core interests of the Chinese leadership to uncover opportunities to leverage existing political will in Beijing for conservation gains. Political will is a critical determinant of the success or failure of environmental policies and interventions, and China’s intention to legalize trade domestically presents both challenges and opportunities for conservationists. Recognizing that the incompatibility of many TCM concepts with biomedical science is a barrier to understanding, Chapter 3 makes TCM more accessible to the conservation community by examining its core philosophies, theories and practices before discussing how TCM and conservation could interact more constructively in the future. A better understanding of TCM will enable conservationists to deliver more effective and lasting conservation outcomes.Chapters 5 and 6 document the scale of ongoing medicinal rhino horn use in China. In Chapter 5, I report on the results of my semi-structured interviews with TCM practitioners, focusing on their perceptions of rhino horn’s medicinal value, clinical applications and substitutability. I investigate the incidence of and factors affecting non-compliance to provide insight for policymaking and future engagement with TCM stakeholders. Chapter 6 reports on the results of my online survey of TCM consumers, focusing on the prevalence of rhino horn consumption in the past year, the reasons behind such medicinal use, and the demographic characteristics and healthcare usage patterns associated with such consumption.Chapters 7 and 8 focus on how demand is likely to respond to trade legalization. Chapter 7 examines TCM practitioner perspectives regarding the present ban on the trade and medicinal use of rhino horn and their views on trade legalization. I investigate the likelihood of TCM practitioners adjusting their prescriptions of rhino horn over present levels if its trade and use becomes legal, as well as the demographic and compliance-related variables associated with any such changes. In Chapter 8, I investigate the impact that trade legalization may have on TCM consumers’ stigmatization of rhino horn use and their likelihood of using it both with and without a prescription. To do so, I provide my large sample of online survey participants different information regarding the status of trade.My thesis provides urgently needed insight into the medicinal demand for rhino horn in China. I provide crucial information on the context of medicinal rhino horn use and the policy environment in China, such that demand for horn can be better understood. I report on the current use of rhino horn in China, and investigate how demand may respond to trade legalization. This thesis advances the ongoing policy debate over trade legalization in pursuit of more positive rhino conservation outcomes.