Editor's note: since February 24th, 2020, the “Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Comprehensively Prohibiting Illegal Wildlife Trade, eliminating the Bad Habit of Eating Wild Animals, and Ensuring the People’s Life and Health and Safety” has been passed, it progresses further of the revision and improvement of relevant laws. Zang Tiewei, the spokesman of the law working committee of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and director of the research office, said in response to a reporter’s question that it needs a process to comprehensively revise the Wildlife Protection Law. “It is planned to include this amendment (Wildlife Protection Law) project in the 2020 legislative work plan of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress.” Recently, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) received the suggestions on the revision of the Wildlife Protection Law sent by volunteers to share with you:

After China’s severe novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, the amendment of the Wildlife Protection Law must be carried out immediately. However, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and the revision of the Wildlife Protection Law cannot complete in one day. It is hoped that the legislative department of the National People’s Congress will be able to mobilize a large number of legal personnel, wildlife-related personnel, especially those fighting at the front line of wildlife protection to participate in the formulation and revision of specific provisions of the Wildlife Protection Law. At the same time, we should adhere to the principle of taking the protection of wild animals as the basic purpose, focusing on the implementation of the supervision of wild animals, and taking the fasting of wild animals as the minimum requirement; and we should emphasize that we should draw a clear ecological boundary between human beings and wild animals, maintain the ecological security of our country, and ensure the health, safety and normal operation of our human society.

First, all terrestrial wildlife shall be included in the protection and supervision system. Including mammals, amphibians and reptiles, birds, insects, arthropods, molluscs, and other vertebrates and invertebrates.

Second, reevaluate and adjust the level of all animals. Except for shrews, moles, rats, and bats with a large number of species in Insectivora, Chiroptera, and rodenta, all other vertebrates should be included in the protection system (including all marmots, hares, and squirrels included in at least three levels of protection animals). The state shall implement three levels of protection, and no longer implement three-have animal protection. Corresponding administrative and criminal penalties must also be made for the hunting, transportation, storage, management, and consumption of the lowest level the third level protected animals (the original three-have protected animals)! At present, poaching or hunting less than 20 animals with three-have animals cannot enter the punishment in our country, and the hunt more than 20 of them to enter the punishment were very few! There is no criminal punishment for the management and transportation of wild animals! At present, the punishment for three-have animals is too light and vague. In addition, those who hunt and catch a certain endangered wild animal and may cause the extinction of its population, or hunt and catch more than 1% - 10% of the population at one time shall be punished with the crime of species extinction as stipulated in the criminal law and the highest penalty - reprieve of death or death penalty.

Third, supervision and administration shall be exercised over land vertebrates not included in the protection level. It mainly includes rats, shrews, moles, bats, snakes, and other dangerous animals. Relevant laws should stipulate the blacklist and relevant punishment measures against arbitrary capture and consumption. The party who eats the blacklist animals without permission shall be punished with the minimum penalty of administrative detention; criminal punishment shall also be imposed on the person who sells, manages, or provides other people with food for the animals on the blacklist.

Fourth, strengthen the management of invertebrates. At present, only a few invertebrates are protected animals. On the one hand, we should expand the coverage of the invertebrate protection level; on the other hand, most of the invertebrates in the non-protected level are restricted in consumption and protected in population. For example, dragonflies are hunted and eaten by many people. We should make it clear that there is a ban on catching and eating dragonflies. Even if there is only one, the wild protection law should also be in charge. This belongs to individual protection. Another example is the earthworm. In recent years, some people have been digging the earth to catch earthworm by electric shock, which has seriously damaged the natural ecology of the soil! What should we do? If an earthworm is hunted, maybe the wildlife protection law could be ignored. However, if there are hundreds and thousands of earthworms get hunted, or the area of soil damaged exceeds 100 square meters, the wildlife protection law must have corresponding punishment provisions. This belongs to the population protection. That is to say, for some animals in invertebrates, individual protection can be adopted, and for animals that are difficult to be supervised, population protection can be adopted. No matter for individual protection or population protection, eating wild animals should be forbidden, including invertebrates that are not under protection. A blacklist of forbidden animals should be made, including cicadas, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, ticks, etc. The party who eats the blacklist animals without permission shall be given an administrative penalty of non-restriction of personal freedom; those who sell, manage or provide other people with the food of blacklist animals shall be imposed with the administrative penalty of restricting their personal freedom; if the circumstances are serious or serious consequences have been caused, criminal punishment shall be imposed.

Fifthly, it is prohibited to breed edible wild animals in an all-round way. In principle, it is prohibited to eat and breed all terrestrial wild animals. These wild animal species that are prohibited from breeding are distinguished by non-traditional breeding species. Amphibians and reptiles should be included in the list of terrestrial wild animals for management.

Sixth, gradually abolish the cultivation of wild animals for medicinal purposes. The cultivation of so-called medical health products, such as black bear gall, musk, Siberian musk deer’s milk (Siberian deer’s milk is the milk clotted in the stomach after sucking the mother’s milk, also known as “Siberian treasure”), tiger bone wine and snake gall wine, should all be abandoned! Because there are bear meat, venison, tiger meat, snake meat in the cultivation of human consumption of the situation. These behaviors will also bring serious risks to public health. Therefore, it is suggested to cancel the gall collection of black bears and the breeding of Siberian musk deer. Within five years, the medical breeding of wild animals shall be completely canceled. 

Seventh, strictly control the cultivation of ornamental wild animals and experimental wild animals. The first is to check the main body of breeding and the main body to be used, and the second is to check the use of breeding. The main body of wild animals for viewing and breeding is the special farm and the main body for use in the zoo. Of course, it may also be other units or individuals, including some kinds of parrots, blue peacocks, and so on. These cultivated animals can only be used for viewing or exhibition. After death, they are buried and forbidden to eat. The main body of experimental wild animal breeding is a strictly approved farm. The animals raised on the farm can only be used for experiments, and the experimental animals must not be eaten. The list of ornamental and cultured wild animals and experimental wild animals shall be published, and those who eat ornamental wild animals shall be subject to administrative punishment. Whomever stores, transports or manages ornamental wild animals to others, or the public shall be punished with criminal punishment; whoever eats or stores, transports, manages wild animals for experimental purposes to others or the public shall be subject to criminal punishment. Experimental breeding of primates animals should be banned.

Original Chinese article:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/__nK8QUr4Q6nXlS-wl30Rw

By / Xue Tongtong Modified / Maggie