(THAILAND) Killing animals and birds for food; eating spiders in Cambodia

[Guest guest]

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

 

Struggle for survival

 

By JOHN KEEBLE

 

KILLING animals and birds for food and other uses

 

has been and still is a big conservation problem in

 

South-East Asia. Even endangered species end up in

 

the cooking pot or are sold to medicine traders. In

 

some places, the northern hills of Thailand, for

 

instance, the abundance of nature has vanished.

 

There is no sound of birds or animals, no sign of

 

anything that is not human or insect.

 

 

 

The comparatively few bigger animals - the

 

Indo-Chinese tiger, the bears, the elephants - have

 

retreated into the deep forests where they are under

 

increasing pressure from those who want their

 

environment or their carcasses.

 

 

 

The link between poverty and the stripping

 

of the environment is very clear. People are

 

desperately poor, most living on subsistence or

 

slash-and-burn farming, and many exist on what

 

they can find or kill in the jungle. Vast numbers

 

outside the main towns regard a frog or a bird as a welcome

 

protein boost and a variation to the constant diet of rice and

 

vegetables.

 

 

 

At the top end of this scale are the subsistence

 

farmers: in Laos, their average annual income is put at

 

US$320 (RM1,200), mostly from the rice they grow.

 

But with the increasing and shifting population trapped

 

in land constrained by the debris of war, it is no longer

 

enough.

 

 

 

Many villages have a rice deficit, malnourishment is

 

widespread, and the bland economic indicator masks

 

the reality of trying to live without money. Aid

 

workers in northern Laos put the average cash

 

income at US$40 (RM$150) a year to buy all a

 

family's needs from cooking oil and salt to clothes,

 

medicines and the books and pencils that are vital

 

because children cannot go to school without them -

 

and children are a family's hope for a future.

 

 

 

Further down the scale are the slash-and-burn

 

farmers who grow mostly sticky rice on the hillsides,

 

an environmental problem and, in Laos, an extremely

 

hazardous occupation because of the unexploded

 

bombs and other weapons left over from the Vietnam

 

War. Yields, even in a good year, are poor and food

 

has to be supplemented.

 

 

 

Then there are those who live on what the jungle

 

provides: the flowers of the wild banana, the rattan

 

and bamboo shoots, the small creatures and insects,

 

the bear or rare deer. Choice catches, like a small

 

wild pig, often end up in someone else's cooking pot:

 

they are sold, trussed up, to passing drivers and bus

 

passengers on the country's expanding road system

 

that is attracting families from the remote mountains

 

and jungle. A small wild pig sells for as little as US75

 

cents (RM2.85) on the road and the sellers look as

 

pleased as lottery winners.

 

 

 

Many see the jungle as their natural provider

 

and cannot understand the concept of

 

conservation. Here, in this collision between

 

the animal world and human needs and

 

beliefs, the killing of a rare tiger and the theft of

 

her cubs for dismembering by the Chinese

 

medicine trade can bring in more cash than

 

most families see in two or three years. Killing a bear

 

to eat amounts to a feast.

 

 

 

The result has been a terrible slaughter of the animals

 

and birds - and the increasing threat to whole species

 

as more people chase fewer of them. But now, Laos,

 

one of the poorest countries in the world, is doing

 

what it can to conserve its forests and wildlife. A

 

major breakthrough in Luang Prabang province in the

 

north came three years ago when the agriculture and

 

forestry department confiscated all hunting guns.

 

 

 

" There were thousands of them, " says Somphong

 

Pradichit, the department's deputy director general.

 

" There are more than 60,000 families in the province

 

and almost all had at least one gun and rural families

 

had two or three. "

 

 

 

The officials did not stoke resentment by destroying

 

the weapons. They just put them in a store so they

 

could rust away. Some families kept back guns or

 

made new ones, although it is now illegal to own or

 

carry a gun. " We couldn't control them all, and

 

hunters still come in from provinces where the guns

 

have not been collected, but it has helped, " says

 

Pradichit.

 

 

 

His department's efforts are backed by government

 

laws - in line with international agreements -

 

forbidding the killing of endangered species or the

 

trading in them. But the rest - the wild pigs, for

 

example, like rabbits in England - are fair game.

 

 

 

Two casualties of the clash between people and

 

animals are being housed in and near the old royal

 

town of Luang Prabang: one, Phet (pronounced " pet "

 

and meaning " diamond " ) is a sleekly beautiful

 

two-year-old Indo-Chinese tiger, which was rescued

 

just hours before she was due to be handed over to a

 

Chinese medicine trader.

 

 

 

She was a week old and had been sold four times

 

before foresters discovered and confiscated her. Her

 

mother had been killed on the Plain of Jars and her

 

two brothers were in such poor condition that they

 

died.

 

 

 

A century ago there were about 100,000

 

Indo-Chinese tigers in Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia,

 

Thailand and Malaysia. Today, some specialists put

 

the population at about 1,500 - perhaps about 500 to

 

600 in Laos (mostly in the south), Cambodia and

 

Vietnam; and up to 1,000 in Myanmar, Thailand and

 

Malaysia.

 

 

 

They are not the only ones in trouble. The " Land of a

 

Million Elephants " , as Laos was known, has no more

 

than 400 left in the wild and the Mekong's Irrawaddy

 

dolphins face extinction by the end of this decade.

 

 

 

Even the effort to save Phet nearly ended in tragedy.

 

" Phet nearly died, " said Pradichit. " We gave her

 

milk but it was difficult for her to digest. We asked a

 

friend at a European Union project to search the

 

Internet to get advice. "

 

 

 

The advice came from Britain's Care for the Wild

 

International, which told the forestry service

 

how to help Phet and then started a long-term

 

project to re-house and feed her. She can

 

never be returned to the wild: she cannot hunt and,

 

because she likes people, she would be easy to kill.

 

 

 

Phet played an important part in triggering the

 

establishment of the provincial Committee for the

 

Rescue of Confiscated Wild Animals, which ties

 

together a powerful alliance drawn from the top

 

officials of the forestry department, the culture and

 

propaganda department, the tourism office and the

 

international cooperation office.

 

 

 

The other rescued animal at Luang Prabang is a

 

young bear, kept by a farmer who shot her mother

 

after she attacked him. She is in as pitiful a condition

 

as Phet was when she was rescued and an Australian

 

bear charity has offered to find the cash for a

 

compound next to Phet. At the moment she is being

 

kept in a small run next to the government's guest

 

house - used for top officials when they visit the

 

town. " People do not like her to be kept like this but it

 

is the best we can do for her, " says Pradichit. " If we

 

released her, she would be killed.

 

 

 

" People eat bears and any other animals. They do not

 

see why they cannot take anything from the jungle.

 

We are telling them at public meetings and we are

 

telling the children in schools that wildlife must be

 

protected. The children understand but older people

 

do not care - they want to kill and eat them. "

 

 

 

The size of Pradichit's problems in protecting wildlife

 

can be seen in a few facts: the province has 11

 

districts, with two or three foresters in each;

 

protecting wildlife is on top of the foresters' usual

 

duties; officials have no transport and get around by

 

public bus; and there is neither budget nor specialist

 

staff for wildlife protection.

 

 

 

" I would like to form a wildlife team to be more strict

 

with conservation, " said Pradichit, whose dreams of

 

funding cannot stretch to having a motorcycle for

 

each district.

 

 

 

But by collecting the guns, running down some of the

 

poachers and illegal traders, and getting on with the

 

huge job of educating the children, he has made a

 

start. - Guardian Newspapers Limited

 

 

 

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

 

Eight-legged snack

 

FIRST unearthed by starving Cambodians in the

 

dark days of the Khmer Rouge " killing fields "

 

rule, Skuon's spiders have transformed from the

 

vital sustenance of desperate refugees into a

 

choice national delicacy.

 

 

 

Black, hairy, and packing vicious, venom-soaked

 

fangs, the burrowing arachnids common to the

 

jungle around the bustling market town of Skuon

 

do not appear at first sight to be the caviar of

 

Cambodia.

 

 

 

But for many residents of Skuon, the a-ping - as

 

the breed of palm-size tarantula is known in

 

Khmer - are a source of fame and fortune in an

 

otherwise impoverished farming region in the east of the

 

war-ravaged South-East Asian nation.

 

 

 

" On a good day, I can sell between 100 and 200

 

spiders, " says Tum Neang, a 28-year-old hawker

 

who supports her entire family by selling the

 

creepy-crawlies, deep fried in garlic and salt, to

 

the people who flock to Skuon for a juicy morsel.

 

 

 

At around 300 riel (30sen) a spider, the

 

eight-legged snack industry provides a tidy income

 

in a country where around one third of people live

 

below a poverty line of US$1 (RM3.80) per day.

 

 

 

The dish's genesis is also a poignant reminder of

 

Cambodia's bloody past, particularly under the

 

Khmer Rouge, whose brutal four years in power

 

from 1975-1979 left an estimated 1.7 million

 

people dead, many through torture and execution.

 

 

 

Turning back the clock hundreds of years, Pol

 

Pot's ultra-Maoist guerrillas emptied Cambodia's

 

vibrant cities and destroyed businesses and

 

universities in a bid to create a totally agrarian,

 

peasant society.

 

 

 

For the millions forced at gunpoint into the fields,

 

grubs and insects such as spiders, crickets, wasps

 

and konteh long - the giant water beetles found

 

in lakes near the Vietnamese border - were what

 

kept them alive.

 

 

 

" When people fled into the jungle to get away

 

from Pol Pot's troops, they found these spiders

 

and had to eat them because they were so

 

hungry, " says Sim Yong, a 40-year-old mother of

 

five.

 

 

 

" Then they discovered they were so delicious, "

 

she says, proffering a plate piled high with

 

hundreds of the greasy fried arachnids. " And our

 

spiders are by far the best in Cambodia. "

 

 

 

For Roeun Sarin, a 35-year-old minibus taxi

 

passenger on his way to Cambodia's capital

 

Phnom Penh, the Skuon spider is definitely a

 

matter of taste, not history.

 

 

 

" I cannot go through Skuon without having a few

 

spiders, I love them so much, " he says, as yet

 

another crispy tarantula disappeared into his

 

mouth. " They taste a bit like crickets, only much

 

better. "

 

 

 

Meanwhile, in the service station in the centre of

 

town, the ebb and flow of Skuon life continues as

 

more minibuses full of spider-starved Phnom Penh

 

residents pull up, to be besieged by a cluster of

 

excited spider-sellers.

 

 

 

Travellers from the capital, 60km to the

 

south-west, often buy dozens of the spiders at a

 

time, fresh from the soil around Skuon, rather than

 

wait for what might be inferior produce in the

 

Phnom Penh markets.

 

 

 

Conservationists and vegetarians might blanche at

 

the relentless pursuit of so many spiders for the

 

sake of a snack, but locals are confident the

 

arachnid population will hold up.

 

 

 

Indeed, the only time a crisis threatened was

 

around the Millennium when an extra-large

 

number of spider-eaters passed through Skuon on

 

their way to celebrate the New Year at Angkor,

 

the stunning 1,000-year-old temple complex in the

 

north-west.

 

 

 

According to aficionado Tum Neang, the best

 

spider is one plucked straight from its burrow and

 

pan fried with lashings of garlic and salt over a

 

traditional wood fire until its skin goes a deep

 

red-brown colour. Crispy on the outside, gooey on

 

the inside, it should then be served piping hot.

 

 

 

But the spider's remarkable popularity does not

 

stop with its taste. Like many of her fellow

 

Cambodians, Chor Rin, a 40-year-old market stall

 

trader, swears by its medicinal properties -

 

especially when mushed up in a rice wine

 

cocktail.

 

 

 

" It's particularly good for backache and children

 

with breathing problems, " she says, dipping a

 

glass into a jar of murky brown liquid, at the

 

bottom of which sits a rotting mass of hairy black

 

legs and bloated spider bellies.

 

 

 

" People could not afford medicine under the

 

Khmer Rouge so they had to use traditional

 

medicines. They drank it and it made them feel

 

stronger. With the wine, it's very important they

 

still have their fangs or the medicine loses its

 

power, " she says.

 

 

 

For truckers making the long trip up to

 

Cambodia's northern reaches, a bracing slug of

 

the liquor is an obligatory tonic, and a litre of top

 

grade spider wine can fetch as much as US$2

 

(RM7.80), a huge sum in local terms.

 

 

 

Prices of fried spiders in Phnom Penh are also on

 

the rise as supply struggles to keep pace with

 

demand - although it looks as though it will be

 

some time before non-Cambodians cotton on.

 

 

 

" They are becoming more and more popular, but I

 

don't think there's much demand from Europeans

 

yet, " says spider-trader Chea Khan. - Reuters