Thẻ: travel

Vietnam and China partner on wildlife-friendly traditional medicine practices

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này


Mongabay.com

Vietnam and China, the two largest markets for traditional medicine (TM) that uses wild plants and animals, announced a new partnership in January to adopt practices that protect wildlife while preserving the countries’ cultural heritage.

The first-of-its-kind agreement involved leading TM associations from Vietnam and China — the Vietnam Oriental Traditional Medicine Association (VOTMA) and the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CATCM) — along with researchers, policymakers and pharmaceutical leaders. TRAFFIC, an international NGO monitoring illegal wildlife trade, facilitated it.

The partnership aims to explore “several sustainable practices to make traditional medicine more conservation-friendly,” said TRAFFIC Vietnam director Trinh Nguyen in a statement to Mongabay. She said these include encouraging practitioners to switch to legal, sustainable and cultivated plant-based alternatives, and eliminating illegal wildlife ingredients in prescriptions.

Historical TM practices in the two countries have incorporated wildlife-derived ingredients, including those from threatened species, such as tiger bones, pangolin scales, rhino horns and bear bile. While many such ingredients are legal to trade inside China, the wildlife parts are often sourced from other countries to meet domestic demand. Many of the threatened species are, however, listed on CITES Appendix I, making the international trade in their parts illegal. As TM becomes popular globally, conservationists worry about its impact on wildlife.

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Plastic is choking the Mekong River

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

themekongeye.com By Anton L. Delgado 20 January 2025 at 10:54

Plastic is now ubiquitous in the Mekong, Asia’s Mother of Rivers, and experts and local people are struggling to contain the risks to human health, biodiversity and livelihoods

ILLUSTRATION: Sunhee Park / Dialogue Earth

On Sơn Island in Viet Nam’s Mekong Delta, Le Trung Tin scatters fish feed into his ponds, where dozens of snakehead fish leap through the surface in synchronized bursts. “I taught them how to do that,” he says proudly, tossing another handful of feed at his fish.

The scene looks idyllic, but Le’s fish farm is a reluctant response to an escalating crisis. For decades, he made his living fishing the Hậu River, a distributary of the Mekong. But in recent years, plastic waste clogged his nets and strangled the fish. “I had no choice but to stop,” he says. “Everything was tangled – trash, nets, even the fish themselves. It was hopeless.”

Now, Le relies on enclosed ponds using filtered water to keep his fish alive. “I built this ecological environment free of plastic waste, chemical spills and [protected it from] extreme weather,” he says.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/1037846174?dnt=1&app_id=122963VIDEO: Anton L. Delgado/Dialogue Earth

Le’s experience reflects the wider challenges facing the Mekong. Stretching over 4,300 kilometres from the Tibetan Plateau to the South China Sea, the river supports nearly 70 million people and some of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems. Yet, it is one of the most plastic-polluted rivers in the world and among the 10 rivers in Asia that carry the vast majority of plastic to the sea. The Mekong dumps – by some estimates – tens of thousands of tonnes each year into the ocean, with plastic waste accumulating along its banks, tributaries and lakes.

Plastic enters the Mekong in myriad ways – agricultural runoff, unregulated dumping and a flood of single-use packaging from upstream countries like China and Myanmar. It accumulates in hotspots like Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia and the wetlands of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, where this plastic waste threatens biodiversity, food security and human health.

Plastics and other waste scattered along the riverbank
Plastics and other waste accumulate along the riverbank near the city of Can Tho in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region. PHOTO: Anton L. Delgado / Dialogue Earth

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