I recently read an article in Quartz about
the supposed explosion of vulnerable and endangered fish-part imports to China
for 'medicinal purposes' (Guilford 2013). I put this phrase in quotes because
it is clear this issue goes far beyond just medicine and to reduce it to a simple
procurement practice for China's medical industry is to discredit what else is
at stake here; Western medicine v. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the
omnipotence of medical science and 'scientific truth' v. 'traditional medicine'
just to name a few. This wasn't a particularly strong article, and so
from here I diverge, but it did do a good job of positing TCM against logic (suggesting the two were mutually exclusive) and I feel this juxtaposition is a good
jumping off point for discussion. Popular Western discourse and texts that address
TCM as an alternative health strategy often take an immediate position of
resistance when the animal parts is discussed. That resistance often divides 'moral' therapeutic options from 'immoral' and 'unnecessary' use of animals and consent to their use only if 'the benefits outweigh the costs', regardless how little these benefits and costs are understood. This need to compartmentalize and crystalize medicine and its justifications may be a little reckless and I think we get
ourselves into ideological trouble here if we ignore this misunderstanding. We can recognize the importance of
sharks, tigers and seahorses to our eco-system and the global tourism economy but should be able to do so
in collaboration with, rather than in opposition to,
Traditional Chinese Medicine.
But it is not just TCM that is being framed as an issue of scientific rationalism and exceptionalism. Threat of species decimation is not reserved
solely for over-fishing and poaching but reaches to all other vulnerable biological populations that are capable of exploitation, more often than not by the advanced
industrialized world. Unfortunately this advancement does not equate to mutual
respect and appreciation between exporter and importer and so those doing the
importing of vulnerable populations all too often do so to the detriment of the exporter.
Regardless, 'resource talk' is a good discourse to analyze when trying to
better understand things like shark fin soup and rhino poaching that persist
despite decades of initiatives and 'bans'. Our Western, 'rational' selves hold the sentiment that if there is a viable alternative treatment, further threatening these species is in moral negation with any medicinal benefit offered. This is a big "if" because with the tenuous understanding Western Medicine has of TCM the judgment of what is a "viable alternative" to say, the use of tiger bone for arthritic pain (Bensky, D., Clavey, S. & Stoger, E. 2004) is subject to all manner of contingencies, speculations, disbelief and otherwise unstable beliefs.
Timber imports to the U.S. resonate here along
side the vulnerable and endangered fish-part issue in China. Similar to the continued use of vulnerable and endangered species in TCM despite there being Western surrogates (e.g. chemotherapy, radiation, biopharmaceuticals), though there are alternatives to Amazonian
hardwoods (e.g. composites), we continue to import the real-deal at harmful rates (Bueno de
Camargo 2008). We are Brazil's biggest timber importer and since we have
these alternatives readily available, I see nothing more elusive and exotic
about fish-part consumption in China compared to deforestation in the Amazon. The Seattle Urban Hardwoods showroom location is a
few blocks from my work and I walk by often on my lunch breaks. Filled with
furniture made from large slabs and beams of solid wood, the store
evokes a timber butcher-shop more than it does a furniture store. While many of
the pieces are salvaged locally, using wood
in this way and charging what they do (you don't even want to know) provides fuel for the ongoing timber trade that is wiping out
forestlands globally. Some of the woods they use are endangered but were growing with some effort in Washington when they were salvaged; trees grow great and plentiful here which can deceive an otherwise eco-conscious individual. A significant number of elm pieces were claimed from Vashon
Island, a tiny island just a short ferry-ride away from the Seattle waterfront. My
grandparents lived there on several forested acres while I was growing up. I
can only imagine that many of these Vashon pieces were taken directly from their land, eroding away Vashon's jungley charm and making it more welcoming
to day-trippers from the city, taking away with them the very authenticity that brought them there in the first place (!). Authenticity matters though. According to Globalwood.org, some towns
rebuilding their waterfront boardwalks after Hurricane Sandy choose to re-build with a tried and true Brazilian hardwood,
Ipe, over composite or native alternatives, which some towns have
chosen, because they did not "offer the same experience" aesthetically. (Wood Products Prices in the U.S., 2013). This
"experience" is what can be culled from the fish-part trade argument
as a major source of conflict and perhaps, if left unaddressed, the reason why
these species will eventually vanish.
It is this taste for exoticism that I want to highlight from the exotic fish-part trade in TCM as an attempt
to reconcile the East v. West divide we reinforce with
evidence-based medicine (or Chinese Elm I-beams) involving double-blind trials and big data. Western Medicine is often framed as
being 'backed-up' by data from scientific and clinical trials while TCM is
swindled of its legitimacy, 'backed-up' by no less than several
millennia of usage and cultivation. Here's some data of another kind: A 2008 study on the use of tiger in TCM for medicinal and health tonic (wellness promoting) purposes
revealed that although 93% of participants agreed the ban on farmed tiger
parts trade should be kept in effect, 43% admitted to using tiger containing products (e.g. plasters, wines) with 71% of
this group showing preference for products from wild tigers as opposed to products from farmed tiger, a dangerous partiality if I ever saw one (Gratwicke, B., Mills, J.,
Dutton, A., Gabriel, G., Long, B., et al. 2008). These attitudes show that the
Chinese are aware of and purport to be in support of tiger conservation but
nonetheless choose tiger products anyways, a rationality that tends to confound Western media. It is this gap in understanding, on both sides of the Pacific, that will be crucial to a more sustainable management of this issue. This article also suggested that a lot of these products could contain counterfeit tiger bone but that it is difficult to decipher this
in the market and, while meaningful nonetheless, is a little outside my argument.
I only hope this portrait takes away some of
the mysticism of TCM believers and their seemingly irrational choices. A
deeper understanding is urgently needed, however, as medical pluralism spreads
globally and as popular presses, like Quartz, pick up stories for exploitation
and exaggeration to the Western public. Reconciling these disparities between suspicion and belief, logic and experience may help
throw in to relief the deeply held judgments against believers of an ancient and intricate form of medicine and, just maybe, furniture makers alike.
References
Bensky, D., Clavey, S. & Stoger, E.
2004 Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica 3rd Ed., Eastland Press: Seattle.
Bueno de Camargo, Mariane
2008 United
States Markets for Brazilian Plantation Wood. World Forest Institute.
Globalwood.org
2013
"Wood Products Prices in the U.S.," accessed May 7, 2013,
http://www.globalwood.org/market/timber_prices_2013/aaw20130201f.htm.
Gratwicke, B., Mills, J., Dutton, A., Gabriel,
G., Long, B., et al.
2008 Attitudes
Toward Consumption and Conservation of Tigers in China, PLoS ONE 3(7): e2544.
Guilford, Gwynn
2013
"China is plundering the planet's seas-and it's doing it 12.5 times
more than it's telling anybody," Quartz, April 30, 2013, accessed May
4, 2013, http://qz.com/78803.
