S4. E4: Peter Knights: The Next Pandemic Is On It’s Way, Unless We Shut Down Wildlife Markets
There’s not much that we can be certain about in such uncertain times but there are a few things. One is that unless we change the way that that we treat animals, the next pandemic is most definitely coming. Only next time, it could be much worse, much more infectious and even more fatal than the current crisis we’re now facing.
COVID-19 most likely started at a wild animal market in Wuhan, China and was transmitted to a human from an animal, probably a pangolin. Wild animal markets are breeding grounds for diseases - and in order to stop the transmission of the diseases to humans, we need to shut down the markets, end the global wildlife trade, and change the way that we treat animals across the board.
If there’s one upside coming from this pandemic (I certainly hope there’s more than one), it’s that wild animal markets have shut down in China (at least they are closed right now) and hopefully, many other countries will soon follow suit. There’s still much confusion surrounding the wild animal markets in China and elsewhere in terms of what's shut down and what hasn’t. So, I asked Peter Knights the Executive Director of WildAid to explain.
Peter has been investigating and working to end illegal wildlife trafficking for the past thirty years. WildAid is different from other conservation organizations, because instead of focusing on fighting the supply side of the illegal wildlife trade, they work to reduce demand and to increase local support for conservation efforts. They’ve been a massive force in the reduction of the demand for ivory, rhino horn, shark fins, and much other illegal wildlife for decades.
Their campaigns have changed the world. If you haven’t seen them (although, you probably have and just didn’t know it) take a look at their website. There are two incredible campaigns for pangolins on there, one with Jay Chou and the other with Jackie Chan.
Peter and I spoke on Friday from our respective quarantines. He graciously explained the current situation with what’s happening with wild animal markets across the planet. And, he shared what the future looks like if we don’t put an end to these markets and the wild life trade. I hope you learn as much as I did.
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WildAid Pangolin Campaign with Jay Chao
WildAid Pangolin Campaign with Jackie Chan
Transcript:
Peter: [00:00:00] The most likely source of new disease is going to be from another animal. We have no immunity to it. It's been in another animal and it's transmitted. So if we don't do anything about this, it's really a question of when the next thing happens.
Elizabeth: [00:00:25] Hi. I'm Elizabeth Novogratz. This is Species Unite. Today's conversation is with Peter Knights, the executive director of WildAid. Peter has been investigating and working to end illegal wildlife trafficking for the past 30 years. WildAid has been a massive force in the reduction of the demand for ivory, rhino horn, shark fins and much other illegal wildlife for decades. While that's different from other conservation organizations, because instead of focusing on fighting the supply side of the illegal wildlife trade, they work to reduce the demand. We know that COVID 19 most likely started at a wild animal market in Wuhan, China, and it was transmitted to a human from an animal, probably a pangolin. Wild animal markets are breeding grounds for diseases, and in order to stop the transmission of the diseases to humans, we need to shut down the markets. If there's one upside coming from this pandemic, and I certainly hope that there's more than one, it's that wild animal markets have shut down in China and hopefully many other countries will soon follow suit. There's still a lot of confusion surrounding the wild animal markets in China and elsewhere. So I asked Peter if he could explain. If you could just talk a little bit about WildAid for people who don't know and what is happening right now in terms of the global pandemic and the wildlife trade and what you do, how does it all connect?
Peter: [00:02:01] Well, I've been investigating and working on illegal wildlife trafficking for nearly 30 years now. As part of that, I used to do undercover investigations going to places like these markets that you've seen in China 25 years ago, in Guangzhou, in China, looking into rhino horn in these markets and seeing what the terrible conditions and the things that were happening to the animals then. So WildAid is really quite unique because we focus on trying to stop the demand for endangered species products. So most organizations are focusing on trying to protect the supply. What we've said is you'll never succeed in doing that unless you can stop the demand for these products. So over the last 20 years, now it's a 20 year anniversary this year. We've been working on trying to educate and raise awareness to people primarily in Asia, but in other parts of the world too, about endangered species trade and the fact that the purchasing is driving the whole thing. So if people stop buying the products, then the poachers won't go out and poach. They'll go and do something else.
Elizabeth: [00:02:58] I saw that you had a campaign going with the pangolins and the mask and Jay Chao. That was years ago, right? That you did that?
Peter: [00:03:07] Five years ago, we did that, yeah. So, I mean, it is really a precursor to these days where the gentleman, Jay Chao, is a very famous Asian musician. We use musicians and activists, people like Jackie Chan, Yao Ming have been leading our campaigns over the years, and in that case, behind Jay Chao, there is somebody pretending to eat a pangolin, and they put on the face mask and they put on the surgical gloves and they pick up the chopsticks and it says, you know, if you're going to eat pangolin, beware to possibility of catching a new disease. Because we've been aware of these problems for a long, long time. It was obviously very prophetic. It may turn out that it's not the pangolin that was the transmitter in this case. We don't know yet. But if it wasn't, it certainly could have been. We know that pangolins do carry viruses as we know bats and other species. So, you know, people say, well, we don't absolutely 100% know it's pangolins. It's like, well, it could be next time. So nevertheless, this problem has to be dealt with. It's a major high risk for new disease introduction through wildlife trade made particularly worse by things like deforestation, which opens up new areas of animals that previously haven't come into contact with human beings, and that is a big risk for new disease.
Elizabeth: [00:04:18] Right. Will you just tell us a little bit about what's happening right now in China? Because I think there's so many rumors and there's kind of a lot of fake news happening.
Peter: [00:04:28] Yeah, there's always confusion around China, unfortunately. Sometimes it's because the government, when they make announcements that are kind of ambiguous and not very clear, and we have to struggle sometimes to work out exactly what people are trying to say, and sometimes it's just a misunderstanding. So, you know that people say to these wet markets, well, wet markets are just places where animals are usually sold live. That's a lot of the world gets their protein from wet markets. The problem that we've had in China and other places is where you mix the domesticated animals with exotic animals and that's where you get the really high risk of new disease introduction and you've got many species together. So the Chinese government pretty quickly suspended all those markets and stopped all those markets and actually stopped the breeders as well, people that were breeding some of these animals and basically closed them down. I got a call yesterday saying the poor breeders, now they have no income and they're in trouble. It's like, yeah, the whole world's in trouble, guys. So let's put it into perspective. But they have been pretty strict in closing down those markets for wildlife now. They've reopened them now, in some cases for the domesticated animals, the chickens and the ducks and things like that. But they have not reopened the wildlife market and they just published a list in China of animals that in the future will be allowed to be traded. So rather than having a great big long list of things that can't be traded, they have a very short list, only these animals will be allowed to be traded in the future, and that's in draft form. It includes things like quail and pheasant and things like that that we sell all over the world as game animals. But it doesn't include things like the pangolins or the civic cats or bats and these things that are very high risk for disease transmission. So we're hopeful when this law is finally passed, it will be a much smaller list of animals that can be traded, mainly the kind of semi domesticated species that are there and that the wildlife trade will basically be closed down.
Elizabeth: [00:06:22] So right now because I keep seeing, people keep saying, hey, I thought this was banned and it's not. It’s just the regular wet markets that they're showing pictures of.
Peter: [00:06:32] That's right. You know, you can see them in Hong Kong, in many places in the world, you can see these markets where the chickens are alive and people have the chicken and they take the whole chicken or they have it slaughtered in front of them so they know it's fresh. That has its own issues. It has its own hygiene issues for sure, but it's not necessarily risking any new disease coming into the system. So that is going to continue around the world. What we're trying to do is ask governments around the world to stop the wildlife elements that bring in this risk of disease transmission, and particularly animals like bats, primates in Africa are a problem, monkeys and things like that. Obviously, with something like a monkey or an ape, you've got a much higher disease transmission risk because they're so much closer to us genetically. I mean, a leap from a chimpanzee to a human being is not a very big division. So that sort of stuff has to be stopped and you're also not going to be able to stop people in the bush, literally in the forests, going and killing animals and eating them. That's just part of their subsistence, and that's not going to stop. What you need to stop is the commercial trade, the bringing of species together, and shipping them into urban centers. These are all high risk factors you're adding to the problem. So we're hoping around the world that governments, not just in Asia, but also in Africa, will take this warning and really severely restrict that activity and really make sure if animals, wild animals are going to be used and they're not at any risk, they're not mixed together, they're not stressed out. I mean, keeping the animals alive for an extended period. Also, they become dehydrated, malnourished, and stressed. That's when they become real shadows of the virus and things like that. So that all needs to stop.
Elizabeth: [00:08:08] So China, though, they're taking it pretty seriously. This is a real change.
Peter: [00:08:12] They are. I mean, unfortunately, with some of the naming and blaming that's been going on, they've become a bit defensive over this. But the law is going forward in draft. They'll probably not be passed until the National People's Congress can convene, but it should revolutionize the way they approach it. On this list, cats and dogs were not on this list either, which, you know, it may be that they use this opportunity to take that off the menus as well, which obviously would be a good thing.
Elizabeth: [00:08:40] What about Vietnam? What are they doing?
Peter: [00:08:42] So Vietnam, we're waiting over the next couple of weeks. They took action very quickly. We did a lot of work in Vietnam around rhino horn consumption. Through the rhino horn issue, I think the government in Vietnam became much more aware of wildlife issues. Before that, they were largely ambivalent to the whole thing, but they've been doing a lot more seizures of ivory and things like that and they've had a new law in and so they've been taking it a lot more seriously. The government immediately reached out to NGOs and other interested parties asking, what do we do? How do we stop this? The problem there is not so much the wet markets. It's restaurants, wildlife or restaurants. So people go to restaurants, the animals will be in cages. You select your animal, it's prepared for you. We think the same thing is going to happen there, where they're going to radically reduce that and somewhat change the attitude from seeing wildlife as like this commodity to be sort of exploited to seeing it as something we need to conserve. Obviously, this is part of the cultural change that's going on, that historically it's been seen as very utilitarian, where we have to consume it, we have to breed it, we have to make more of them. Now people are valuing nature for nature's sake more and saying, no, we want to keep these animals and they're all endangered. So it's part of a transition that's been happening in Asia over the last couple of decades.
Elizabeth: [00:09:49] A lot of the work you have done, WildAid has done. I mean, this is all going in this direction anyway.
Peter: [00:09:57] Absolutely I mean, I think one of the most fulfilling things for me that came out of this horrible mess was tht the reaction from the Chinese public, particularly the urban and younger generations, was like, we've got to stop wildlife trade. This is ridiculous. Why are we still doing this and not using our slogan, which is basically no trading, no killing, to say this is time to stop. One comment said that we need to civilize our diet and that was from a Chinese person saying that. So we've seen an 80% reduction in shark fin imports to China. The price of ivory and rhino horn has gone down by two thirds. You know, we've seen people already moving very strongly in the right direction, led by people like Yao Ming, Jackie Chan, all these influencers, they're all like, no, we want to value wildlife for its own sake, not to exploit it. So this is very much in the line of where things are going. The big difference, I think, is that the government agencies in charge of this were all about exploitation. I mean, basically it's the forestry ministry and the Forestry Ministry was all about originally cutting down trees. That was what it did. Then a few years ago, China reversed that and said, Hey, we're having problems with flooding. We need to start planting trees, not cutting them down. That ministry had to do a complete 180 to become conservators rather than exploiters. We think the same thing is going on with wildlife. So instead of having to meet quotas of production of these animals, now it's going to be like, how good a job are you doing at protecting and making sure these animals aren't being traded? So this is part of an evolution. It's been sped up by this and we do see, we hope, the minor silver lining to this horrible cloud over the world is that our attitudes to wildlife in different places are going to move on into the future, valuing nature for its own sake and put a value it does, and basically keeping us safe. If you mess around with it, then we've seen the awful, awful consequences.
Elizabeth: [00:11:44] Absolutely. What about here? We have wild, wild animal markets in New York and California. So what's going on with them?
Peter: [00:11:52] Well, I mean, and exotic pet trade. I mean, there's not as many markets, obviously, and most animals tend to be sort of slaughtered on site and brought to the market prepared, which is obviously much less of a risk of disease transmission. But there have been some and we've had problems in the past with some of these markets where not just in disease but also invasive species, people selling things like little turtles for food, which then can escape and become invasive species here. So it's not just the disease risk. There's other risks and there's also the risk of transmission of disease to domesticated animals. So they're working on the pet trade in Paris. There is something called Newcastle's disease, which could be transmitted from a parrot brought in to chickens and then in one case 12 million chickens had to be euthanized. So there's all kinds of disease risk with wildlife trade and here we do have less of the sort of exotic meat market, but there is more certainly an exotic pet market. So, you know, parrots and reptiles can bring in parasites and ticks and possibly disease, too. So that's something which probably needs more of a closer look.
Elizabeth: [00:12:55] So because WildAid, your campaigns have been incredibly successful, will you just talk a little bit about your campaigns and how they work and the kind of success that they've really achieved because it's phenomenal?
Peter: [00:13:08] Well, it's very much been a partnership because whether it's our spokespeople like Jackie Chan, who we worked with for 20 years with Yao Ming, who's just been brilliant on the ivory and the sharks in campaigns, but it's also been the Chinese government. So the Chinese government has provided up to $200 million worth of media space to it. So these campaigns use very high production values, you know, CGI, bullets, all kinds of special effects to try and make them engaging and entertaining. We have absolutely top line ambassadors like Yao and Jackie, and then the media has been largely donated by Chinese media. So that's what's given it the scale. So when people think about NGO campaigns and think about a few posters or something like that, these are like billboards all over the cities. It's on primetime television and social media. They're really huge campaigns. As I said, last year, we had $120 million worth of media space that was given to us. So they have been able to be very pervasive. They're all over the place with all kinds of different celebrities, from Prince William to David Beckham, all these different international characters, as well as local Chinese, of course. We've been using the same slogan for, well, since 2006 in China. So the slogan has basically become a mantra. People almost cite it as if it's some Confucian saying. No trading, no killing. People just cite that. So everybody knows it and it's been very, very powerful and a lot of attitudes have changed, which is really wonderful to see.
Elizabeth: [00:14:43] And with ivory, with rhino horn, the numbers are astonishing compared to what they were.
Peter: [00:14:49] Well, all things being equal, those numbers would have been going up significantly as the economies have got bigger and the numbers have been going up and to actually bring them down significantly. Obviously, China banned the ivory trade a few years ago, the president did that. That had a huge impact. But when he banned it, we'd already had our campaigns going out with Yao Ming. So when it was banned, people understood why it was being banned and there was tremendous support. One survey we did was 95% of people in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou were in favor of the ban. So this wasn't something which was being imposed. It was unpopular. It already had the understanding and popularity. What we hope to do working with the Chinese government around this issue is also get that message out there that here's the reasons why the government is taking this action and you all need to be supportive. I think one big hope for this, because people always say, well, will they enforce it? Actually the Chinese government, when they get serious about things, really enforce things well. We've just done a massive campaign with Chinese customs there and they've done an excellent job and they even turned their security scanners at the airport to detect ivory. They were picking up people with like one bangle, you know, going through the check ups. So they did an incredible job on that. But a lot of this is going to be policed by the public, you know, in the days of social media. Now, if these things are on sale, then people can take a photo on their phone and post to social media and then the authorities can react to that. So we think that's going to be really important. Particularly the younger generation, we've seen the economic costs, never mind that the human lives have been lost to this. This is really an economic sabotage that's taking place. If you're engaging in these practices.
Elizabeth: [00:16:21] That's incredible about the bracelets and the scanners.
Peter: [00:16:24] Yeah, I mean, just amazing. They take people's bags when they go through because they can train to density. So it comes up as a specific color as it goes through the scanners and they just for three months they just had this massive crackdown. They caught loads of people and published it. Every single entry point to China had posters with a celebrity dress as a custom of the holding of ivory saying this is contraband. When I went through Beijing airport, there were 25 of these billboards before you got to the customs. So by the time you've got to customs. You're carrying ivory. Oh, my God. These guys are so omni. So, you know, when the Chinese want to do something, they can be very, very effective.
Elizabeth: [00:16:59] What about trafficking in countries in Africa with what's happening right now? Is there going to be any major changes?
Peter: [00:17:06] Well, the big, big concern with the tourism industry down, is that, first of all, it causes economic hardship and people are out of their jobs. But it also means there's not people around everywhere in the parks and reserves. So normally you have all the staff from the lodges going backwards and forwards to work, you have all the guides, you have all the tourists out there. There's lots of people milling around to make sure that nobody's poaching. So that's not happening anymore and so there is a big concern that the poaching will go up because there's not as much surveillance and also economic hardship. I mean, we've had it relatively easy. I mean, being stuck at home is not the best thing. But economically, we're relatively well-off. I mean, people in Africa literally will not be able to feed themselves and they can't get out and do things. So there’s going to be very desperate people and some people are likely to turn to poaching, sadly.
Elizabeth: [00:17:54] So this pandemic obviously has been a huge wake up to the whole world for so many reasons. But with the wildlife, trade and trafficking, it's like all the alarms are going off right now. How do you see the world can get behind your work, what's happening? And people can actually participate in helping push this change forward?
Peter: [00:18:17] Well, it's about education and awareness. Then most of the governments, we think will be reacting pretty positively. Our attitude with China has tended to be, you know, no point of spilt milk. It's not about looking over your shoulder. You need to look to the future for what's going to happen. When governments take action, let's encourage them. Let's say, well done, great. You're on it. You know, Malawi, for example, has banned bushmeat trade there right now. So I think encouragement at this point is better than critique. I mean, people know what the issues are. They know what the problems are. Now let's move forward and let's try and solve some of these things. What we're hopeful is that some governments like China and Vietnam, can set up some kind of model responses to this, where they deal with all the issues and in some cases it needs new laws, in some cases it needs greater penalties. You know, some of the penalties in some countries are just meaningless. So that needs to go up. This is obviously now a crime with a massive cost to the world. Then it needs enforcement and then it needs public awareness and so governments should be engaging in all those different fields simultaneously. Whatever people can do to support it would be great. I think also in Africa with this crisis, many of the anti-poaching efforts rely on tourism money to support them financially. So if anybody can support anti-poaching on the ground in Africa, that's very positive. Finally, you know, people say to me sometimes, what can we do if we want to help elephants and things? And I say, well, go to Africa and see elephants, put money into those African economies, create jobs, and that is going to incentivise the government and people to conserve those animals. So hopefully when this all dies down, people can get back. I mean, all the safaris have been canceled right now, but when that opens up, I would encourage people to go and go to Africa and spend money on the ground there and help support people, livelihoods and the wildlife. If you haven't done it, then you know it should be on your bucket list because I don't think there is anything more peaceful and more beautiful than sitting next to a herd of elephants doing their thing. After all this craziness, maybe we need to reconnect with nature a little bit more.
Elizabeth: [00:20:17] We absolutely do. So for going forward then right now with WildAid, your biggest focus is pushing all these agendas?
Peter: [00:20:25] Well, you know, we were focused on pangolins before this. You noted that we also have a great ad with Jackie Chan teaching pangolins to do kung fu to protect themselves from poachers, which was a lot of fun. So our pangolin really is an extension of our pangolin campaign. So we're reaching out in Asia to ask people not to eat pangolins. Also in Africa, obviously looking at other species, but it's really our slogan in Africa that poaching steals from us all. Originally we were talking about the loss of wildlife and loss of tourism now, obviously, it's the loss of entire economies based on poaching and illegal activity.
Elizabeth: [00:21:01] There's still people who don't know what pangolins are and are very confused by what they are. Can you just give a little description?
Peter: [00:21:10] So pangolins are the only scaled mammal. They have scales almost like a dragon which are actually made of keratin, which is the same thing as rhino horn and hair and fingernails are made off and they're anteaters. They have great big long tongues for getting ants. They're very shy. They live on their own, they're nocturnal. Most people in Africa have never seen a pangolin in their lives. Even people who are guides and safari camps have never seen pangolins because they're very evasive, but they are being hunted, usually using dogs to find their burrows and digging them out and they’re used for their meat and also for the scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine, something which is outlawed now but is still going on in parts of China. So we hope they will act on that as well, because obviously having the byproduct of the scales encourages the capture of the meat as well. But the most trafficked mammal in the world, there's four species in Asia which are highly endangered and four in Africa which are now being heavily exploited. A couple of weeks ago we had, I think it was 8.2 tons of pangolin scales seized in Malaysia. You know, these are not big animals and these scales are very light. So 8.2 tonnes is thousands of pangolins.
Elizabeth: [00:22:20] And that's recent like since this has all been going on?
Peter: [00:22:23] Yeah. The shipment probably left before the virus hit, but it was right in the middle of the outbreak. So this is still going on. In November, I was in Nigeria with the actor Djimon Hounsou and we were filming in markets there where people were selling pangolins and we actually went with a vet that rescued seven pangolins, which we were able to release. But it's going on all over the place and, you know, they carry both parasites like ticks, but they also have been found to have viruses in them. There's a virus similar to coronavirus that was found in China and so the speculation has been that it was transmitted from a bat to the pangolin to people last time with SARS it was bats to civet ats to humans. So there's usually like a transmitted species between the bats and the humans, but the bats are heavy virus carriers. Of course, if you leave them alone, it's all fine. But if you take them out and you mix them together and they're in cages above other animals, I mean, the diseases can just spread.
Elizabeth: [00:23:21] What happens if we don't do anything and this is just going to keep happening and the next one.
Peter: [00:23:27] Absolutely. It's just I mean, calling out sort of campaigns like preventing the next epidemic, because you look back and there's a history, whether it's HIV is believed to have been derived from AIDS, from SIV, simian immune virus, which went from monkeys to chimpanzees, which are the monkeys to human beings, butchering chimpanzees for the bushmeat trade. That was the origin of the whole AIDS crisis. You know, there's things like Monkeypox, which was transmitted as an outbreak in the United States, which came from Gambian rats, which had been imported as pets, which then infected prairie dogs, which were being kept as pets as well, and then got into human beings. So there's just a whole long list of viruses which are out there. I think a lot of people don't realize that. I think it's like more than 70% of fatal diseases in humans originated in animals. Most of those came to us when we domesticated animals. So we've got a lot of things from pigs and cows and chickens. When we domesticate them, we're in close proximity, but the most likely source of new disease is going to be from another animal. We have no immunity to it. It's been in another animal that's transmitted. So if we don't do anything about this, it's really a question of when the next thing happens.
Elizabeth: [00:24:40] Right.
Peter: [00:24:42] It could be way worse than this. It could be way worse than this. You know, this is obviously infectious and a nasty disease. But things like Ebola and Marburg are just absolutely horrendous. Something out of a horror movie and these things are out there.
Elizabeth: [00:24:54] What can people do to get behind WildAid and support your efforts?
Peter: [00:24:58] Well, please, you know, go to the website and join up and sign into our newsletter. We will try to keep people informed as all the new information comes out on what the latest theories are and what's going on in countries. We're asking people to sort of help and, as I say, encourage governments to think at this point, you know, critiquing is not the right way to go. We need to just, when people do things, go and say, hey, that's the way to go, guys, well done. Try and encourage countries to follow the leaders. I think we're seeing that now with the disease where certain countries have dealt with this so much better and there's lessons that we can learn from it and then stay in touch with us through our social media channels and signing up for the newsletter.
Elizabeth: [00:25:35] Thank you, Peter, so much.
Peter: [00:25:37] Thank you.
Elizabeth: [00:25:46] To learn more about WildAid and to get behind their work, go to their website, WildAid.org. While you're there, watch some of their campaigns or watch all of their campaigns. They're absolutely incredible. Our website is SpeciesUnite.com. We're also on Facebook and Instagram, @SpeciesUnite. If you'd like to support the podcast, we'd greatly appreciate it. You can do so in one of two ways: subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts. We're also on Patreon, it's Patreon.com/SpeciesUnite. I would like to thank everybody at Species Unite, including Gary Knudson, Natalie Martin, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey and Anna Connor, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
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