Officials from China's Hoh Xil national nature reserve will
travel to London to persuade Europeans to boycott shahtoosh shawls,
which are made from the wool of the endangered Tibetan antelope, sources with the reserve said
on Friday.
The reserve's director Cega along with two conservation
officials will leave for London on March 20 to attend the fourth
Oxford's OXDOX documentary film festival in London, which runs from
March 10 to 25.
"Europe and the United States are the largest markets for
shahtoosh shawls. During the festival, we will screen a documentary
film and display photos to tell Europeans the bloody facts behind
the making of shahtoosh shawls and call for a boycott on their
trade." said Cega.
Unlike other wools, which can be sheared off an animal, the wool
of a Tibetan Antelope can only be obtained by killing the animal.
It takes three to five antelopes’ wool to make a single shahtoosh
shawl.
Roughly translated from Persian, shahtoosh means "the king of
wools."
A single shahtoosh shawl can cost as much as US$16,000 on the
European market.
The documentary, named "Chiru" by Beijing director Fu Jingsheng,
shows how the animals are killed and how their wool are collected,
and how China has cracked down on illegal poaching in recent
years.
"By attending the international documentary festival, we hope
the poaching of these precious creatures will become an
international concern," Cega said.
Tibetan antelopes are mostly found in Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province and the western part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Poaching and human encroachment of their habitat has caused
their population to shrink from several million to less than
100,000 in the past two decades.
Since 1979, the animal has been given the highest level of
protection under the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES). It is an international crime to kill,
harm or trade Tibetan antelope or its body parts.
Chinese conservation officials launched a campaign to crack down
on illegal poaching of Tibetan antelopes in 1997 in Hoh Xil, which
is a reserve that encompasses China's largest area of uninhabited
land.
The region became well known following the release of the
award-winning feature film, "Kekexili Mountain Patrol" by Chinese
director Lu Chuan. It tells the true story of a journalist who
joined a Tibetan volunteer patrol chasing poachers trading in
antelope wool in Hoh Xil, which is spelled Kekexili in Mandarin
Chinese.
The film will also be screened during the OXDOX festival, said
officials with nature reserve.
(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2007)
