Ringing in the Chinese New Year

Lunar New Year celebrations continue. Also known as the Spring Festival, it’s the most important Chinese holiday, for which millions of Chinese travel across their vast country by road, (increasingly fast) rail, boat or plane to reach their home villages and families. In the south-central province of Jiangxi, in Jishui County, Wang Ronghua, the livestock entrepreneur who’s featured in Brighter Green’s documentary, “What’s for Dinner?,” has been working hard. “Other people enjoy festivals,” he says, “but we have more work to do….I work day and night for the New Year festival. We even have to slaughter pigs at night.”

Interestingly, just before the New Year festival, the Chinese government indicated that a new survey on the sources of China’s water pollution had found vastly more pollution than even two years ago. The main reason: for the first time, agricultural waste was included; 13.2 million tons of agricultural effluents were counted, including from factory-style livestock operations, smaller farms and crop production. “Everybody knew there was a problem with agricultural pollution in China,” said Steven Ma, of Greenpeace’s Beijing office. “But now there are numbers.” Big numbers.

It’s the Year of the Tiger. Not great news, though, for tigers. Only about 3,200 are left in the wild, down from about 10,000 during the last Year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac. Many more tigers now live in captivity than in the wild. China itself has about 50 wild tigers. About 20 live in the north-east of the country; that population is relatively stable, but, of course, it’s tiny. Many more live in a series of “reserves” that are really no more than tiger farms supplying, covertly and overtly, tiger “matter” for products like tiger wine and tiger tonics. The trade in tiger parts — illegal — still rages. China is a key point of demand. It’s dispiriting, but likely that the Year of the Tiger will dial up demand for tigers themselves, or pieces of them. It could, of course, also focus (again) renewed attention on the tiger’s (perpetually) desperate plight for habitat, and a respite from hunting and poaching. The Year, of course, has only just begun. I’m on the look out for resolutions…