The Revised Draft of the Wildlife Protection Law Was Publicly Solicited for Comments, and Prevention of Public Health Risks Has Become an Important Principle | Convened by CBCGDF (I)
2020/11/30 14:59:00 本站

The 22nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress reviewed the Wildlife Protection Law (Revised Draft) and publicly solicited opinions from the public on the NPC website. China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) and Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences recently convened a seminar on the revision of the Wildlife Protection Law. Legal experts, law enforcement officers on the front line of wildlife protection, and social organizations have put forward suggestions on improving the provisions of wildlife protection.

 

Prevent public health risks from the source and regulate illegal consumption and online transactions

 

Any law is a product of the times, and there are more or less limitations in legislation.

 

From the first promulgation in 1988 to the current revision, the Wildlife Protection Law has undergone five revisions. Except for the drastic revision in 2016, the other several adjustments were made in detail.

 

This revision made revisions on key issues. The revised draft not only mentions the protection of genetic resources and gene protection, but also puts forward the theory of biosafety, putting prevention of public health risks in an important position.

 

The revised draft adds to the legislative purpose the content of preventing public health risks, clarify that the state implements the principles of priority protection, standardized utilization, strict supervision, and risk prevention for wildlife, it is required to prevent and control major public health risks from the source. The revised draft also requires the addition of wild animal epidemic disease and its distribution in the investigation, monitoring and evaluation of the status of wild animals and their habitats, strengthen the surveillance system of wild animal epidemics, it also stipulates that the inspection and quarantine management of wild animals shall be strengthened, and the relevant provisions of the "Animal Epidemic Prevention Law" shall be applied.

 

On February 24, the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress voted to pass a decision on a comprehensive ban on illegal wildlife trade, abolish the abuse of wild animal habits, and earnestly protect the lives, health and safety of the people.

 

To provide a legal basis for curbing the abuse of wild animals, the revised draft regulates illegal consumption of wild animals and online transactions. Provisions prohibit illegal consumption of wild animals, and prohibit illegal sale, purchase, consumption and use of wild animals and their products in online trading platforms, commodity exchange markets, and catering establishments, or prohibit the use of hunting tools to provide display, trading, and consumption services.

 

Sun Youhai, Dean of the Law School of Tianjin University, believes that the "Wildlife Protection Law (Revised Draft)" has a strong contemporary character, emphasizing the prevention of public health risks and taking this as the purpose and basic principle of legislation.

 

From the perspective of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, to manage wild animals in a classified way

 

The legislative feature of the Wildlife Protection Law in 1988 is that wildlife is regarded as an economic resource, and the legislative concept of "promoting utilization with protection" and "simultaneous utilization and protection" occupy a dominant position.

 

The "Wildlife Protection Law" revised in 2016 established a new legislative purpose of "maintaining biodiversity and ecological balance, and promoting the construction of ecological civilization", however, the design of the specific system still emphasizes the economic use under the supervision of license.

 

In recent years, the game market has been repeatedly banned, the illegal trade has often persisted, and the scale of the artificial breeding of wild animals has continued to expand. Wild animals have both economic value and ecological value. How to choose between the two? For a long time, various parties have had differences on the use and protection of wild animals, and it is difficult to reach a consensus. Therefore, there are strong calls for clarifying the boundary between the use and protection of wild animals in accordance with the law.

 

The revised draft strengthens the management of the entire chain of terrestrial wildlife with important ecological, scientific, and social values in terms of hunting, artificial breeding, trading, and transportation.

 

From the perspective of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, the ecological, scientific, and social functions of wildlife protection are emphasized. The revised draft stipulates that the development of a list of terrestrial wildlife with important ecological, scientific, and social values should seek the opinions of relevant departments and adjust them in due course. At the same time, in addition to national and local key protected wildlife, "terrestrial wildlife with important ecological, scientific, and social values", corresponding management regulations have also been increased on other terrestrial wildlife.

 

"Other terrestrial wild animals that have not been monitored before are also important parts of the ecosystem." said Yang Zhaoxia, director of the Ecological Law Research Center of Beijing Forestry University, although other terrestrial wild animals can be protected without key protection, regulations must be stipulated to prohibit large-scale killing and use, and to prevent the regulation of the bottom line of public health safety risks, so as to effectively fill the gap in legal supervision.

 

He cited, for example, that some people used electric earthworm capture machines to capture earthworms for profit, which led to large-scale earthworm deaths in some places. Although earthworms are not included in the protected list, they have corresponding important ecological functions, and such use should be prohibited.

 

Relevant government departments should provide financial support for shelter and rescue, and build a government-civilian joint rescue system

 

In view of the fact that there have been many precedents of wild animals "although there are laws but unable to protect them", the revised draft fills in the regulatory gap and calls for strengthening the construction of wildlife shelter and rescue capabilities.

 

The Wildlife Protection Law revised in 2016 added a new regulation to upgrade the shelter and rescue of wild animals to a legal system. According to the second paragraph of Article 15, the wildlife protection department of the people's government at or above the county level shall organize and carry out wildlife shelter and rescue work in accordance with relevant state regulations.

 

"After wild animals are confiscated, it is difficult to handle and rescue them. Even in many cases, they need to be raised first. Some have to wait for the court to sentence them before they can be dealt with. This will cause a large number of wild animals to die." Social organization "Let the Migratory Birds Fly" staff member Yang Han said.

 

This revision takes into account that in recent years the public has paid more and more attention to wild animals, and more and more spontaneous rescue activities have put forward higher requirements for the number of shelters and rescue facilities. So, the revised draft modifies the second paragraph of Article 15, emphasizes that the country strengthens the construction of wildlife shelter and rescue capabilities, the wildlife protection department of the people's government at or above the county level shall, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the state, arrange funds to organize the work of sheltering and rescue of wildlife.

 

In fact, to do a good job of sheltering and rescue of wild animals, it is not enough to rely solely on government funding. According to Qian Yefang, a professor at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University Law School, because there is no legal identity, there is no legal venue, private shelters and rescue agencies are often forced to relocate because of complaints. These problems have seriously hindered the development of charity activities for wildlife shelter and rescue.

 

She believes that “From the official shelter and rescue model of wild animals to the official-civilian co-management model, local forestry authorities should support and encourage the development of wild animal shelter and rescue charities, the establishment of a wild animal shelter and rescue system governed by the government and the people in multiple forms of rule of law needs to be clarified in the ‘Wildlife Protection Law’.”


(To be continued.)


Original Chinese article:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_ZRzepYUE7JqWfYbY8ev7A


By / Maggie