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Information for Traditional Chinese Medicine PractitionersRecently, a coalition of conservation organizations wrote a letter to the Chinese Premier reaffirming the value of existing laws banning the trade in tiger parts. Read the Joint Statement on China’s New Regulation for Import and Export of Endangered Species of Wildlife Read the letter from the President, Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (US) to the Chinese Premier about the TCM industry's support of wild tigers. Explore this website about endangered species and TCM compiled by the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine and WWF http://www.tcmwildlife.org/ Substitutes for Endangered TCM Products
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Mending the Web of Life: Chinese Medicine and Species
Conservation is a book for students and practitioners of Chinese
medicine, conservationists and anyone interested in endangered animals
and plants used in the Chinese materia medica. It begins by
providing an overview of international conservation agreements, the
concept of sustainable use and identification and nomenclature and their
impact on the trade of endangered medicinal species. By using
philosophical ideas of the medicine itself as a motivation for
protection, it offers a paradigm for conservation that can be understood
and supported by practitioners of Chinese medicine from any culture or
country. Mending the Web of Life also presents profiles that
include the distribution, biology, threats and conservation strategies
of these species, which will enable the reader to appreciate them beyond
their medicinal use as unique and valuable life forms in their own
right. It also provides the results of a peer reviewed, survey of
practitioners on substitutions and replacements for these species in
traditional formulas. There is a chapter on the importance of
cultivation in conserving medicinal plant species, and also on United
States Laws and Treaties that govern their import or export. Finally,
there is a list of suggested actions the reader can take that will
instill hope and a sense of direction for medicinal species
conservation. Ultimately, the model for protection outlined in
Mending the Web of Life can be applied to any species threatened
by extinction and helps humans gain perspective on their responsibility
in preserving biodiversity for the health and well being of people as
well as the Earth.