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| 08:44, September 15, 2009 |
China key to protecting endangered species (2)
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The dried shark's fins. (Global Times/Agencies Photo)
While some people eat shark's fin thinking it is beneficial for anti-aging and helpful in preventing cancer, the opposite is true.
It is these kinds of facts that WildAid is trying to get across to the Chinese public and by getting celebrities such as Yao to promise not to eat shark's fi n the NGO has already helped stem consumption.
Guo Man has heeded Yao's call. The founder, chairman and CEO of Air Media Group told the Global Times that he quit eating shark's fin a long time ago and urges many of his friends to do the same.
WildAid's education campaign is geared towards those who can afford such "delicacies," like Guo Man's friends.
"If you look at the way society works, those people also tend to have influence – they direct companies, or work in media agencies, or the government," explained Steve Trent, founding director of both WildAid and the Environmental Justice Foundation (UK).
"By educating them [those with infl uence] you educate a wide group of people," he added.
As WildAid's work focuses on saving endangered species, Trent said that it is vital and urgent to control consumption. People who are urban, relatively wealthy and relatively infl uential play a key role, Trent added.
If consumption is not severely curtailed, Trent warned that there would not be any of these exotic foods left to eat. "So, whether it's good for your health, whether it's good for social status, or whether it's good for how you feel, if you don't control it, then you won't have it again."
Trent has worked in environmental protection for 20 years and made his first visit to China in 1999. Since then he said that he has seen great changes, many of them positive.
He was in the Chinese capital recently to hand out awards sponsored by WildAid and Air Media Group for designs that won a public advertising competition to further raise awareness of protecting endangered species and the environment.
Now with awareness taking hold, China needs to take the next step, according to Trent.
"I believe the world needs China's leadership and the world needs China's conservation. The role the country has to play is genuinely a world – leading role.
China is making it to the next stage where the understanding is combined with leadership and real action to protect the natural world."
He firmly believes that if China takes a more active role, it can be influential globally.
"One of the reasons why I keep talking about leadership and believe it to be so important is because conservation will only be effective when it crosses national boundaries and where you have collaboration between countries."
Source: Global Times
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