Chinese medicine raising wildlife concerns I

　　It is thousands of years old and may have the power to cure what ails you, but its effect on wildlife gives environmentalists the heebie-jeebies (紧张). Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, once the province of Chinese shop owners and Western hippies, has become a billion-d ollar international industry in recent years, offering cures effective enough to attract research dollars from modern pharmaceutical(药剂的) companies.

　　But wildlife experts warn that the healing art whos e origins are said to date from the 3rd millennium B. C . is endangering growing numbers of the wild animals an d plants that provide ingredients for its treatments.

　　More than 20 years ago, environmentalists sounded a larms about the rampant poaching(偷猎) of African and Asi an rhinos(犀牛) for rhino horn, which is said to cure fev er and delirium(神志失志).

　　Now the international body that oversees trade in w ild species is scrutinizing a growing number of plants and animals affected by demand for TCM.

　　'Where years ago it was sort of a fringe (濒危) thing , TCM accounts for close to half the new species we loo k at,' said Susan Lieberman, a US Fish & Wildlife offic ial who sits on a scientific advisory panel to the UN C onvention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

　　CITES, a treaty signed by 152 countries, governs tr ade in more than 30,000 protected plant and animal spec ies.

　　Demand for siberian must deep

　　Before wrapping up meetings in West Virginia, CITES officials reviewed trade and conservation data on TCM-a ffected species from seahorses and fresh-water turtles to Asiatic black bears and Indian cobras.

　　Lieberman's panel concluded that skyrocketing deman d for the musk of Siberian musk(麝香) deer from Russia an d China may be unsustainable because of over exploitati on(开采), poaching and the destruction of wild habitat.