Better protecting wildlife good for all
Editor's Note: The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, on Monday passed a decision on thoroughly banning illegal wildlife trade and eliminating the bad habits of eating wild animals to safeguard people’s lives and health. What needs to be done to protect wildlife as well as public health? Three experts share their views on the issue with China Daily’s Liu Jianna. Excerpts follow:
Legislative move to strengthen protection of wild animals
That the top legislature passed a draft decision to better protect wildlife is encouraging news, as some people have been profiting from the trade in wildlife at the expense of people’s health and the country’s reputation, with the wildlife protection department is forced to take the blame.
Many animals are not included in the country’s wildlife protection list, which has not been updated for 30 years except for some small adjustments. The existing wildlife protection law focuses on protecting rare and endangered species, and many animals such as bats are not the protected list.
Therefore, it is necessary to update the wildlife protection list and forbid the capturing or breeding of all wild animals, except those that can be legally bred and sold in the market. This will help stop the sale of wild animals and limit human contact with them and thus greatly reduce the chances of animal-tohuman disease transmission.
As China’s 2018 ban on the ivory trade shows, keeping legislation abreast of the times can significantly promote wildlife protection and prompt people to change their habits of wildlife product consumption.
In fact, after the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-03, the wildlife trade has largely diminished in Guangdong province .
In short, the wildlife protection law should be further strengthened and publicized to prevent consumption of wild animals. And the public should be endowed with supervision rights so they can play a bigger role in wildlife protection.
Enforcement of law more crucial in protection
The wildlife protection law should be expanded to cover all wildlife, not just the ones that are included on the protected list. Wild animals like hares and pheasants should also be protected, albeit differently from the way rare and endangered animals are protected.
As a matter of fact, the biggest problem with wildlife protection lies not in legislation, but the lax enforcement of the law, mostly because of a lack of grassroots law enforcement personnel. Many local governments don’t have forestry bureaus, which are in charge of wild animal protection.
Besides, the many departments involved in wildlife protection including the forestry and grassland administration, industrial and commercial administrative departments, public security departments and agricultural departments should have more clearly defined responsibilities.
The institutional restructuring goal of “one thing should be managed and resolved by one department” has not proved as effective as expected. In practice, wildlife is divided into terrestrial and aquatic animals, which are managed by the forestry and agricultural departments, respectively. But who is responsible for amphibians such as frogs?
There is also confusion over the management of wildlife between the natural habitat and the market, as the commercial administrative departments only act when wildlife enters the market.
The loopholes in law enforcement need to be plugged.
While the new law on wildlife protection should clearly define wildlife, artificially bred wild animals, such as sika deer and giant salamander, should be viewed as domesticated animals and managed like pigs and chickens. They should be raised, quarantined and tested according to strict standards to ensure their safe use. And all trading and eating of wildlife, irrespective of whether they are on the protection list, should be banned.
The novel coronavirus outbreak is a warning that the detection of zoonotic disease is related to the disease control system, which needs significant improvement. Until now, attention has only been paid to controlling the spread of disease among domesticated animals such as the spread of avian influenza and swine fever, while the control of viruses and bacteria at source remains weak. Wild animals, especially bats, marmots and muridea should be tested for the viruses they carry to prevent them from endangering public health.
Both wild and domesticated animals must be protected
Prioritizing the protection of wild animals, China’s wildlife protection law also emphasizes the limited and proper use of wild animals. For instance, some practitioners of folk art make a living by taming monkeys and using them in performances. If all commercial use of wildlife is banned, these people would lose their livelihoods and folk art forms would die an untimely death. Therefore, the principle of proper use, not zero use, of wildlife should be upheld.
The Criminal Law, which prescribes heavy punishment for those killing and indiscriminately capturing wild animals, should be strictly enforced. Besides, the compensation mechanism should be improved to better manage the cases of wild animals injuring or killing people or disrupting their livelihoods.
Prohibiting the indiscriminate trade in wild animals and their consumption is necessary, especially given the novel coronavirus outbreak, which is speculated to be connected with the consumption of wild animals. But instead of indiscriminately punishing everyone suspected of trading in or consuming wild animals, the authorities should find the root cause of the issue.
To end the chaos surrounding wildlife protection, a comprehensive animal protection law not limited to wildlife, but also including pets, domesticated and performing animals, should be introduced and classified management and protection implemented.