Shocking: Millions of Electric Motors Kill Earthworms, Environmental Protection Volunteers of CBCGDF Call for a Ban on E-Commerce Platforms- 中国生物多样性保护与绿色发展基金会

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Shocking: Millions of Electric Motors Kill Earthworms, Environmental Protection Volunteers of CBCGDF Call for a Ban on E-Commerce Platforms

2020/12/10 18:09:00 本站

Environmental protection volunteer Zhang Xiaolei is very young, but he has traveled all over the country. He and China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) launched the "Wildlife-Free E-Commerce" team.

The initiative team currently includes nearly 100 members including experts in related fields and environmental lawyers, and nearly ten non-profit environmental protection organizations have joined the action. In response to the rampant phenomenon of using motors to catch earthworms, this team recently called on all e-commerce platforms to remove "earthworm motors" products.

According to Zhang Xiaolei, earthworms are small wild animals that feed on animal and plant debris in the soil. Because its manure is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other elements, it can significantly improve soil fertility; And because the activities of earthworms can make the soil loose, breathe, and retain water, which is conducive to the growth of plants, it is hailed as an "ecosystem engineer" and an "environmental reuse expert".

In some areas in the eastern part of Hainan Province, there is a tradition of catching earthworms. For more than 30 years, a complete industrial chain of capturing, purchasing, drying and transporting earthworms has been formed. In the past three years, the capture of earthworms has evolved from irrigating with liquid medicine to directly using "earthworm motors" to kill them. "One person can catch hundreds of jins of earthworms with a motor in the morning. According to the reports, Hainan’s electricity captures about 10,000 tons of earthworms a year." Zhang Xiaolei told the reporter. In fact, in addition to Hainan, there are many places in China where there is excessive catching of earthworms.

It is understood that the reason why electricity catches earthworms is rampant, is the gradual increase in fishing enthusiasts in recent years. Earthworms are used as natural fishing bait; secondly, earthworms can be processed into feed for chickens, ducks, pigs, cattle and goats. In addition, earthworms can be used as Chinese medicinal materials, so many people are driven by profit to catch and sell earthworms unscrupulously. In many comments about the motor that electricity capture earthworms, there are inquiries about buyers if they buy dried earthworms.

The Wildlife-Free E-Commerce team found through investigations that the motor machines that electricity capture earthworms were mainly sold on some well-known e-commerce online platforms.

According to Zhang Xiaolei's estimation, an "earthworms electricity capture motor" uses 50 days a year to capture 5 jins of earthworms a day, and 1 jin has about 30 earthworms. According to the density of 3 earthworms per square meter, 100,000 such motors will "kill" 750 million earthworms in 250 million square meters of soil in a year. This is equivalent to the loss of vitality of approximately 3.75 million mu of land. "The destruction of earthworms by so many electricity capture earthworm motors and the damage to the land is really shocking," Zhang Xiaolei said.

In the soil ecosystem, earthworms are a very important animal. Without earthworms or not enough earthworms, the biodiversity in the soil may decrease. Therefore, the use of the "electricity earthworms capture motors" to exterminate earthworms has severely damaged the soil ecosystem, resulting in loss of soil activity and deterioration of the structure, which is an act of destroying the ecological balance. Therefore, it is hoped that all major e-commerce platforms will remove products such as "earthworm motors", disconnect the chains of related products, and permanently refuse such products to appear on the e-commerce platforms. It is hoped that local functional departments will investigate and deal with the enterprises that manufacture electric earthworm motors and educate the producers; hope that social organizations will continue to vigorously promote scientific popularization and publicity, and raise public awareness of environmental protection. Every piece of lucid waters and lush mountains needs the protection of the people. It is hoped that the general public can deeply understand the hazards of electric earthworm machines and take their best to protect the ecological environment.

According to Linda Wong, the Deputy Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), electric earthworm capture has been around for a long time, but it has not been solved for a long time. To this end, CBCGDF has filed an environmental public interest litigation (EPIL) against the manufacturers of electric earthworm motors and e-commerce platforms this year in the Zhuhai Intermediate People’s Court of Guangdong Province, and brought three the motor manufacturers to court. At the same time, the e-commerce platform that sold the products was included in the lawsuit as a third party.

At the same time, the team's volunteers have repeatedly reported about multiple e-commerce platforms that sell extinct hunting equipment such as electric earthworm motors.

Linda Wong believes that the protection of wild animals in the past often focused on endangered and rare wild animals, which was very limited. China’s wildlife protection law is actually a protection law for the rare and endangered and the key protected wildlife species and lacks a macro and overall consideration of biodiversity. Biodiversity protection is an important part of the construction of ecological civilization, and it needs to be promoted with a comprehensive, holistic, and systematic approach.

Linda Wong suggested that China should formulate a national level "Biodiversity Protection Law" as soon as possible, so that the protection of earthworms and other non-rare and non-endangered wild animal species and their ecosystems can be followed by law.

Linda Wong said that December 5th is "World Soil Day". To pay attention to soil health, it is necessary to pay attention to soil biodiversity. Soil is the foundation of food production, and it is also a sustainable guarantee for the people’s livelihood. To prevent electric capture earthworms is a need to protect the health of the soil ecosystem. However, the problems facing the soil today include not only chemical pollution, soil erosion, desertification, saline-alkali land, etc., but also a long-term under-appreciated threat - the extinction type of electric capture of earthworms, which seriously damages the health of the soil ecosystem.