Around 100,000 pangolins are killed every year to satisfy demand in Asia for their meat and scales, making them the world’s most heavily trafficked wild mammal. Their meat is viewed as a delicacy and their keratin scales are falsely believed to possess medicinal properties.
These unique animals – which resemble scaly anteaters – are taken from their habitats in Asia and Africa and killed to satisfy human consumption, a practice which has led to them being threatened with extinction.
WildAid has been granted £195,600 from the UK Government’s Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund to help save pangolins by reducing this demand in Vietnam and China – the two largest consumer markets.
PROJECT SUMMARY
Our two-year project will dissuade Vietnamese and Chinese consumers from purchasing pangolin products by debunking the false medicinal value of their scales and making the consumption of pangolin meat socially unacceptable.
It will also build capacity for more effective enforcement of trade bans. Reducing the main markets for meat and scales will decrease the illegal trade, alleviating poaching pressure on pangolin populations.
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION & SUCCESSES
WildAid (including the US and China teams) is working with CHANGE (Center of Hands-on Actions and Networking for Growth and Environment), a Vietnamese NGO, to design, plan and implement project activities in Vietnam.
Public Service Announcements
We have issued four TV public service announcements this year. Two feature incredibly popular Chinese actress and model Angelababy and are being distributed throughout China online, on TV via CCTV, CNTV, Shanghai Education TV, Beijing Documentary TV, Shanghai Documentary TV and Shenzhen TV, and on over 8,000 indoor screens in Beijing (in government buildings, banks, shopping centers, etc). The other two PSAs are airing in Vietnam and feature Vietnamese model (Miss Universe Vietnam 2015) Pham Huong and well-known comedian Tran Thanh.
Campaign Launches
WildAid launched the campaign in Beijing on May 17, holding a press conference with Angelababy and releasing a PSA and billboard featuring the actress. Representatives from 32 media outlets attended the event, resulting in over 120 articles and 2.9 million views of campaign content (blog and video) on China’s Youku, Tencent, Meipai and Weibo sites and apps (in addition to over 1 million “likes”). We launched the campaign in Vietnam on July 29 at a news conference in Hanoi with the debut of three PSAs starring actress Maggie Q, model Pham Huong and comedian Tran Thanh.
Billboards
We have produced and begun distributing three billboards: one in China featuring Angelababy and two in Vietnam featuring Pham Huong and Tran Thanh. The Angelababy billboard has been placed in the Beijing airport (17 billboards), Guangzhou airport (14), Shanghai Hongqiao airport (12), Chengdu airport (10), Beijing’s busy Wangfujing walkway, on Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou subway lines (including two transit stops’ big screens), Guangzhou business center and Hangzhou big outdoor LED screens.
The message incorporates a Chinese play on words, translating roughly to:
“The biggest threat to pangolins is Humans (only) can help save pangolins. Consumption of their meat and scales has led to around 100,000 pangolins being killed each year. Even the Chinese pangolin is now critically endangered. Please say no to pangolin products.”
Training
In late June, we collaborated with Fuzhou Customs and Fuzhou CITES MA to host a training workshop for 50 customs officers and anti-smuggling police officers from Fuzhou and Xiamen Customs in China, who are tasked with inspecting both cargo and passengers at the airports. The purpose of the training was to help the officers learn to quickly identify products from CITES-listed wildlife including ivory, rhino horn, pangolin meat and scales, manta ray gill rakers, shark fin and totoaba bladders. Professor Hou Senlin of the Nanjing Forest Police College led the training session. In August we held a similar training with Beijing Capital Airport Customs for 50 customs and anti-smuggling police officers tasked with inspecting both cargo and passengers at Beijing airports. Here, Director Meng Zhibin, senior expert from the Endangered Species Scientific Commission of China instructed officers on how to identify pangolin, elephant, rhino, tiger and lion products.
Pangolin Report
In the lead up to the CITES CoP, where four proposals to uplist all eight pangolin species had been submitted by 19 nations, we wrote, designed and published a comprehensive report on the state of pangolins in an attempt to raise awareness and build support for the uplisting.
Campaign Reach
At the CITES CoP 17 last month, pangolins finally received the level of protection they deserve: an Appendix I listing for all 8 species. CNN published a story about the uplisting, which heavily featured WildAid’s campaign, including our PSA with Angelababy. WildAid China posted about the uplisting on Weibo, reaching 38.5 million viewers. Reposts from Angelababy, UNEP as well as many other KOLs helped make the post and video go viral.