Once upon a time, the name " Yew " has not yet been heard. In Yunnan, it is called Zijin Tree, in Jiangxi, it is called Fir Cypress Tree, and in Sichuan, some people call it "Flat Cypress Tree" - because its wood is hard and difficult to attack by knives and axes, it is not good firewood, and the mountain people only occasionally cut it into shoulder poles and chopping boards.
By 1992, yew suddenly became a "money tree". In that year, the American BMS company invented a method to extract paclitaxel from yew. Because paclitaxel is effective in treating breast and ovarian cancer, it has quickly become a popular drug for treating cancer in the world. At its peak, paclitaxel sold for $2,000 per gram.
In the next 10 years, a "yew skinning war" was staged in the mountainous areas of southwestern my country.
A set of data is shocking: In the early 1990s, data before the "missation" occurred in paclitaxel showed that 80% of wild yew in China were concentrated in Yunnan, with about 5 million plants in the province, and part of surrounding provinces and cities accounted for 50% of the world's yew resources; in April 2002, the Yunnan Provincial Forest Public Security organized a sample survey by the investigation team, and concluded that 92.5% of yew in the primeval forests in Lijiang, Diqing and other places in Yunnan, 92.5% of yew was cut and peeled, and paclitaxel products were flowed abroad on a large scale.
The newly cut yew is generally bright red in cross section and gradually turns black after drying. The scene of the image was in Yihuang County, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province, and was published in 2014.
As early as 23 years ago, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora had included Yunnan Yew in the appendix. In 1999, China clarified the legal status of wild yew - national first-class protected plant , and logging, transportation, and buying and selling were strictly prohibited. In 2001, Yunnan Province launched the "Special Action to Protect the Preservation of the Rare Tree Species of Yew", and the shocking skinning wind was suppressed. Today, 42 countries around the world call it "national treasure", and the United Nations explicitly prohibits logging.
But just a few years later, the nightmare reappears - in addition to "medicine", yew is also a high-quality wood.
In the past 10 years, with the rise of mahogany furniture and carvings, yew that does not rot when encountering water has become the new favorite in the market. In Fujian, Yunnan, Jiangxi and other provinces with large resources in yew, the number of illegal logging, illegal acquisition, transportation, processing and sales cases has increased year by year.
The Paper search and sorting out relevant judicial documents found that from the public jurisprudence alone, in the past 10 years, 20 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country have ruled 1,179 cases of illegal logging and illegal sale of yew. Among them, the four years from 2014 to 2017 were the most intensive, with two or three hundred new cases each year.
The disaster of paclitaxel
Yew is very tenacious and does not fall leaves for one or two years after death.
26 years ago, the Hengduan Mountains in western Yunnan, where the most densely distributed yew was found, with yellow leaves in large areas. After peeling and death, the yew still stands tall in the forest, but the leaves change from dark green to golden.
At that time, many media reported on this "skinning war" in Yunnan Province. Public reports show that from 1992 to 2001, Yunnan yew has been devastating in the past 10 years, and most of the more than 3 million yew trees distributed in the Hengduan Mountains in western Yunnan have died after being peeled.
"The disaster" originates from paclitaxel.
Research since the 1990s has found that paclitaxel is present in the roots, stems, leaves, skins and fruits of yew, among which the bark is the highest. Because paclitaxel is effective in treating breast and ovarian cancer, it has quickly become a popular international drug for treating cancer.
Since the paclitaxel content of yew is only 0.01%-0.02%, the damage to resources by large-scale extraction is serious. The United States, Canada and other countries have legislated protection of yew, and the source of medicine has turned to China and other countries.
In recent years, the western Yunnan region has quickly formed an industrial chain of "village skinning - bark dealers acquisition - processing plants produce semi-finished products - Sino-US joint ventures to purify and export".
Since 1994, bark dealers have become active in Yunlong County , located between Nujiang and Lancang River Canyon . In this poor county, the bark of yew is "robbed". Every morning, dozens of tractors carry villagers up the mountain to log wood. The peeled trunks are thrown into the Shuijiu River, and the sap dyes the river water blood red.
At that time, some yew vendors colluded with the business managers and passed the card with the "border trade wood" trafficking documents they bought. From early 1994 to May 1996 alone, more than 1,000 tons of yew bark flowed to the international market through the Pianmahe Port in Nujiang Prefecture or the Kunming-Hong Kong front line.
Yunnan Hande Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hand Company"), established in Kunming in 1993, stands at the top of this industrial chain. As a banner of the province's high-tech industry, Hand Company has always had legal certificates and approval documents, and is the second largest export and foreign exchange earning company in the province after Hongta Group.
Hander is a Sino-US joint venture, and the US Deyun Company holds 80% of the shares. In 1999, Hand Company's purity production of paclitaxel with 99% successfully passed the FDA certification and obtained a pass to the United States. The company once became the second largest supplier of paclitaxel producers in the world.
In fact, Hand's rapid industrial development and shocking resource destruction in forest areas have been happening simultaneously.
Since 2001, Yunnan Province’s “Special Action to Protect the Precious Tree Sprouts” has been launched, storm has been set off, and Hand has fallen. In November of the following year, Hand Company and its legal person Wu Jun were convicted of illegal business operations and smuggling rare plant products, and Wu Jun was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
At that time, this case was called the largest case since the implementation of the "Wild Plant Protection Regulations" (1997).
The court found that from September 10, 1999 to November 2001, in more than two years, Hand Company successively produced 111 kilograms of paclitaxel with a purity of more than 98%, and the vast majority were exported to the United States, worth more than 200 million yuan.
Some experts have calculated the calculation that the more than 100 kilograms of paclitaxel alone means that the bark of 300,000 to 600,000 yew trees is peeled.
This case was the most severe case after the special crackdown in Yunnan Province was launched more than a year ago. Previously, more than 50 people have been arrested in Yunnan for destroying yew and 32 have been sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment.
In July 2003, the State Administration of Import and Export of Endangered Species and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Import and Export Management of Yew and its Products", which clearly stipulates that "the commercial export of wild Yew and its parts and products is prohibited."
The wind of skinning gradually stopped.
Yew logging site. The scene of the photo was found at Pingkeng Village Group, Le'an County, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province. Jiangxi Province was published in 2014.
thousand criminal cases
Uprooted a yew tree with mixed roots (roots) and required 15 people, plus an excavator. This illegal logging occurred in January 2016 and is located in Xikeng Mountain Farm, Yongfeng County, Jiangxi Province. The court's judgment records the criminal process in detail in the case.
The Paper sorted out the public verdicts on the Internet and found that in the past 10 years, there have been 153 criminal cases of yew destruction in Jiangxi Province.
Yew is mostly distributed in rare virgin forests. Crushing to cut down requires special "pioneering the way" and using chainsaws to decompose the trunks on site. The scene in the picture was Le'an County, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province, published in 2014.
The social science journal Jiangxi Science published a paper entitled "Analysis of the Current Situation of Taxus in Southern Jiangxi Province and Protection Countermeasures". The article introduces that there are 11 species of yew, and there are 4 species in my country, which belong to the first-class endangered protected species. In my country, yew is mainly Yunnan yew, Northeast yew, Tibetan yew and southern yew.
Among them, the excessive mining and illegal logging of yew in the south are serious, and the situation is the most serious. Jiangxi yew belongs to the category of southern yew.
This article gives a set of data. According to incomplete statistics, from 2006 to 2013, the number of yew logging in Jiangxi Province showed an upward trend, and the places where the slander occurred were mainly distributed in 7 cities (districts) and 23 counties (cities), among which Fuzhou City and Yichun City are more . In the past 8 years, a total of 560 yew trees were cut down in the southern two cities, including many large trees that are hundreds of years old.
The area with the most concentrated distribution of yew in Jiangxi Province is Yichun City Tonggu County . The county's forest coverage rate is as high as 87.4%. There were more than 800,000 wild yew trees in the territory, which is rare in the country and is known as the "land of yew in the south."
In May 2014, Jiangxi Daily published three articles in a row, reporting on the rampant logging of yew in Tonggu County and the lazy government of relevant departments.
These three reports record the reporter's report to the local forest police and forestry departments that clues of yew being cut down but were repeatedly shirked. The article caused widespread response after it was published. The local area immediately launched investigation and supervision procedures, and soon a main culprit of theft was arrested. At the end of the month, the Tonggu County Government also issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening Forest Resources Protection and Management".
The report at that time showed that staff from Tonggu County forestry department said that the number of yews stolen in the county in those years was indeed unaware of the Forestry Bureau and did not conduct investigations or statistics. The information provided by relevant personnel from the county Forest Public Security Bureau is that in the past four years in May 2014, the police have seized 37 criminal cases of illegal logging, purchasing, transporting, and selling yew and its products, and held 91 people criminally responsible.
In fact, judging from the number of incidents in the past 10 years, Jiangxi Province is not the largest in the country.
The Paper sorted out the public judicial documents and found that in the past 10 years, 20 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country have ruled 1,179 cases of illegal destruction, stealing, transportation, buying, selling, and processing of yew. Among the "top three" cases in the number of criminal cases, the first is Fujian Province, with 266 cases, followed by Yunnan Province, and the third is Jiangxi Province, with 153 cases.
Nationwide, in the four years from 2014 to 2017, such cases were the most intensive, with two to three hundred new cases each year. Sichuan Province, one of the provinces with more new cases in 2018, has been sentenced to 5 cases, which is almost the same as Fujian and Yunnan.
As early as 2014, local media in Sichuan reported in detail a "10,000-mile underground transportation line" established by illegal merchants and loggers. Hundreds of tons of yew were transported from the original forests of Sichuan, Ebian, Meigu, and Ganluo to root carvings and furniture merchants in Fujian, Zhejiang and other places.
At that time, data from the Sichuan Forest Public Security Bureau showed that Ebian was the area with the largest number of cases of yew logging. From 7 items in 2010 to 17 items in 2011, 13 items in 2012, and 6 items in 2013.
. Before 2010, such cases had not occurred in the local area.
The yew tree tangerine seized by the police has been stored in the backyard of the Forest Public Security Bureau of Yongfeng County, Jiangxi Province for about two years, and no special agency has received it yet. Pengpai News reporter Wang Le, pictured
Homeless "corpse"
In July 2001, the largest yew plant in China that is well-documented was peeled. The yew tree is about four or five thousand years old, with a breast diameter of 2.6 meters, and it takes six or seven people to hug it.
Villager Liu took 4 days to peel four or five hundred kilograms of bark and sold it for four or five hundred yuan.
This yew grows in Yunnan Dali Prefecture Yunlong County.
1994, the county's yew experienced a skin-skinning catastrophe of nearly two years. In April 1995, the Yunlong County police set up a special task force for this purpose. In one month, more than 80 tons of yew bark were confiscated, a batch of illegal trafficking procedures were confiscated, and five major elements who illegally acquired and trafficked yew were arrested, and the tide of theft was finally stopped.
This case was the largest yew stolen harvesting case in the country at that time.
"Looking at the ruins of this deserted mountain that was once covered with yew but now full of devastated, it is really hard to erase that sadness in my heart - the first thing I think of is the thinking about law." At that time, the judge of Yunnan Higher People's Court Zhang Jinming , wrote an article to record this case and published it in the People's Daily's "Time Tide" magazine in 1997.
The article is titled "Yeon's unprecedented disaster".
article states that this major case involves 2,050 people, and the court sentences only 4 people, and the longest sentence is 1 year and 6 months, and the shortest sentence is 5 months. At that time, when the people's court heard such cases, it could only be based on Article 128 of the Criminal Law passed by the National People's Congress on July 1, 1979: "If the law on protecting forests is violated, the illegal logging, deforestation or other trees is violated, and the circumstances are serious, the person shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than 3 years or detention, and may be fined alone."
On September 27, 1995, the Standing Committee of the Yunnan Provincial People's Congress reviewed and passed the first local special regulations on protecting precious tree species in the country, "Yunnan Province Preservation Regulations on the Protection of Rare Tree Species", and it began to be implemented in December of the same year. "However, without national legislation as backing, a legalized scientific management system cannot be formed, and without corresponding policies as a guarantee, it is not easy to protect forest resources. "Zhang Jinming wrote.
Shortly afterwards, the first instance verdict was announced in the case of "illegal operation" and "smuggling and cherishing plants". The court found that from September 10, 1999 to November 2001, Hande Company spent more than 12 million yuan to acquire 5,519.312 kilograms of yew bark and 10,765.475 grams of semi-finished products.
In fact, as early as September 1999, the yew family collectively became a "national first-class protected plant." According to "China The People's Republic of China's Wild Plant Protection Regulations, the state prohibits the sale and purchase of first-class protected plants.
was also in this year. The price of paclitaxel in the international market rose, and it was sold at a high of US$2,000 per gram. Driven by huge profits, the skinning war was still in full swing. At that time, the purchase price of live bark peeled by farmers in forest areas was 1-1.2 yuan per kilogram. Bark dealers were able to sell for 30 yuan when they reached Kunming, while processing enterprises could make millions of profits.
In the past 10 years, yew In the case of wood robbery and trafficking, profits are also concentrated at the end of the "industrial chain". Taking the Ebian Mountains in Sichuan as an example, the traffickers collect wood on the mountain less than 1,000 yuan per ton, while in Fujian and other places, the prices of root carvings and furniture products are as high as tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands.
In the public judgment sorted out by The Paper, Fujian Province became the province with the highest incidence of cases of yew destruction. In the past seven years, the province has sentenced 263 cases of yew destruction. Among them, 48 people have been sentenced for the crime of illegal processing alone in five years.
A large number of verdict documents show that common yew involved in the case carved with root carvings of tea tables, low stools, Guanyin statues, Maitreya statues, and God of Wealth statues.
However, after such cases were solved, new problems arise - the lifeless yew is "priceless" and "no market" and is "homeless".
Dozens of yew logs seized by the police have been stored in the backyard of the Forest Public Security Bureau of Yongfeng County, Jiangxi Province for about two years, and gradually dry up and black. There is currently no special agency to accept it. Pengpai News reporter Wang Le Picture
In the largest theft case in the province ruled by Jiangxi Province last year, the police seized more than 70 yew logs and multiple tangerines. At present, they are still piled up in the backyard of the county forest police bureau and the county forestry bureau. The originally bright red section has dried up and blackened.
"hot potato. "Chen Chunying, judge of Yongfeng County Court, who once hosted the case, told The Paper, "Try to recover it as much as possible, and where will it be put? "Kang Hong, director of the Yongfeng County Forest Public Security Bureau, said that they reported it directly to the above, but there is still no following. "There are many similar situations in the province and the whole country."
