China: Panda numbers – not black and white

The Giant Panda is something of a political animal – though not through choice, it must be said – with ‘panda diplomacy,’ the practice of giving pandas to other countries as gifts, having been around since the Tang dynasty, some 1,400 years ago. Where the pandas were once proudly given as gifts to the people […]

China: Shahtoosh, king of wools

Living on the high, sparse steppe of the Tibetan plateau, the Tibetan antelope – or chiru – has found itself squeezed between the lines of the economic development that brought railways and roads to Tibet, stabbing in from the rest of China. The Beijing-Lhasa railway threatened to split the chiru’s habit in two, creating a […]

Rhinos: Too little, too late?

With the demand for rhino horn being driven primarily by the Vietnamese and Chinese markets, conservation groups have focused their attention on campaigns directed at combating its use both as a stimulant and as a medicine. The above poster is also available in Vietnamese, as it is in Vietnam that demand for rhino horn is […]

Why does Vietnam love Rhino horn so much?

Rhino horn consists of keratin, the same material that makes up hair and nails in humans, and hooves in horses. Rhino horn differs from the horns of most other animals in that respect, as the horns of other animals are usually made from calcium. The exact chemical composition of each rhino will differ slightly, depending […]

China: Bear Bile《熊胆》

Bile is a digestive fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, and it is harvested from the Asiatic black bear, brown bear, and sun bear across China, the Korean peninsular, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. In the body, bile aids digestion in the small intestine, but in traditional Chinese medicine, where it […]

Spilled Water

覆水难收

Asia