How has expansion in the use and trade of animal-based Traditional Medicine (TM) products in East and Southeast Asia been shaped from the 1950s until today, and how has this impacted the sustainability of the resource on which it depends? The question is important because the expanded use of animal tissue for medicinal purposes has proliferated over the last seventy years, contributing to the severe depletion and threatened extinction of many species, and indirectly to zoonotic disease by helping sustain the wildlife trade [Still, 2003; Symes et al, 2018b], While the trade in wild animals is coming under increasing scrutiny across many academic domains (conservation biology, ecology, criminology, public health, public policy etc.) as well as regulatory regimes, we know comparatively little about its history, and even less about the cultural, social, and economic processes that have shaped one if its main drivers: faunal medicalization [Chee, 2021; Hughes, 2017a; 2017b; Van Uhm, 2016; Krishnasamy & Zavagli, 2020; Alves et al, 2005]. Our project will greatly advance knowledge of how the animal-based drug trade has developed across East and Southeast Asia, and provide information which can help in crafting policy to reverse its more dangerous trends. Our initial focus or baseline will be animals linked to the largest of the Asian traditional medicines (TM), namely Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), but will involve cross-referencing the use of faunal drugs and tissues in other regional TMs (Japanese Kampo, Tibetan Sowa Rigpa, Vietnamese Thuốc Nam, and Laotian and Cambodian medicines) to provide a holistic picture of the role of animal medicines across all these domains. A comparative study of this type across multiple Asian TMs has never been undertaken.

PI & Co-PI: Gregory Clancey & L. Roman Carrasco
Collaborators: Liz P.Y. Chee, Stefan Huebner, Kathryn Muyskens, Sabina Insebayeva, Chang Che-chia, Chheang Vannarith, C. Michele Thompson & Amy Hinsley
ARI Team: Hao Pei Chu, Jenne Tok & Belinda Cheng

Funding Agency: Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 2 (MOE-T2EP40122-0001)
Project Duration: 1 January 2023 – 31 December 2025