China bans wildlife trade, consumption to safeguard health
(LI MIN / CHINA DAILY)
The outbreak of COVID-19, which is widely believed to have source links with wild animals, has prompted China’s top legislature to roll out a swift decision to comprehensively ban the consumption of wildlife across the country.
On Feb 24, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee made it clear that all wildlife on the protection list of the existing Wild Animal Protection Law or other laws, and all terrestrial wildlife, including those artificially bred and farmed, are banned from consumption.
The decision, with immediate effect, also calls for harsh penalties for the hunting, trading and transportation of wild animals on the protection list of existing laws. The hunting, trading and transportation of wild terrestrial animals for purposes of consumption are now banned.
Li Zhanshu, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, said on Feb 24 that much positive progress in epidemic prevention and control work has been made under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. Li said the top legislature’s move aims to safeguard people’s lives and health.
He instructed related authorities to strictly implement the decision, strengthen market supervision, harshly crack down on the illegal wildlife trade and promote environmental protection and public health awareness.
Li also said that postponing the NPC plenary session this year is a careful decision that could help concentrate efforts on fighting the epidemic.
The novel coronavirus had infected 78,064 people and killed 2,715 on the Chinese mainland as of Feb 25, according to the National Health Commission. The virus is thought to have emerged at a seafood market in Wuhan, Hubei province, where wildlife was sold illegally, according to media reports.
Zang Tiewei, a spokesman for the committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission, said on Feb 24 that the latest decision consisted of eight articles.
“Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the prominent problem of recklessly eating wild animals and its potential risk to public health has aroused wide public concern,” he said.
“But amending the Wild Animal Protection Law needs to go through legislative procedures. At the critical moment in epidemic prevention and control, it’s highly necessary and noteworthy for the NPC Standing Committee to pass a special decision.”
A decision made by the NPC Standing Committee is usually about a single issue and not as comprehensive and systematic as a law, but such decisions have equal legal effect.
However, since fishing is an important agricultural mode of production and also an internationally accepted practice, aquatic wild animals like fish are not on the prohibition list, according to Yang Heqing, deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Commission’s economic law office.
Common poultry and livestock like pigs, cattle and sheep are also not on the list.
Animals that have been farm-raised for a long time so as to have become widely accepted by the public, and which form value chains helpful in local poverty alleviation, such as pigeons and rabbits, are also excluded, Yang said.
However, such animals should be managed under the category of poultry and livestock, and relevant central government departments should draft and publicize a list of such animals and put them under strict inspection and quarantine measures.
“The decision may bring economic losses to some farmers who raise animals. Local governments should support and help them to adjust and transform production, and offer them compensation depending on the practical situation,” Yang said.
Also, under some special circumstances and with the regulations of relevant laws, wild animals can be used for nonedible purposes, such as for scientific research, for drugs and display. But strict application and approval procedures are required, according to the decision.
Violators will be severely punished, and venues for illegal production and trade will be seized and closed.
Next, the NPC Standing Committee plans to amend the Wild Animal Protection Law, and a draft revision to the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law is expected to be submitted for review in the near future, said Zang, the spokesman for the Legislative Affairs Commission.
Researchers install infrared cameras in Wuyishan National Park in East China’s Fujian province, on Dec 31, to better monitor wild animals. (ZHANG GUOJUN / XINHUA)
The top legislature is also accelerating legislation on biological security, and considering revising the Law on Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases and some other laws to improve the public health emergency management system, he added.
Before this, on Jan 26, China put up a temporary ban on the trading of wild animals at markets, restaurants and on e-commerce platforms until the end of the outbreak.
A special joint task force targeting the illegal wild animal trade has been set up by five departments — the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the General Administration of Customs, the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
In Yunnan province, known as the country’s wildlife kingdom, 2,351 wild animal farms have been temporarily closed to the public, and all administrative approvals related to wild animals have been suspended.
By Feb 11, the Yunnan forestry security department had handled 186 cases of illegal wild animal trading, with 20 suspects being held and 1,405 live animals caught.
In South China’s Hainan province, forest police recently busted several cases related to wild animal poaching and trade, arresting one suspect.
A special operation is underway in the island province to inspect marketplaces, flower and bird markets, restaurants, breeding sites for wild animals and their habitats, in a bid to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus pneumonia through illegal wildlife trading.
Forestry police in the city of Wanning, Hainan, said a suspect surnamed Huang caught a rare and endangered python, which is under State protection, and kept it on a farm.
In the province’s Ledong Li autonomous county, local police cracked a case of the illegal killing of an osprey and an illegal purchase of a macaque, both of which are also under State protection.
Police in Wenchang, Hainan, discovered that a suspect surnamed Xing transported and killed wild animals. A total of 36 frozen Eurasian coots were found in Xing’s home, and 88 live Eurasian coots were discovered on his duck farm.
A total of 97 red-eared slider turtles were seized by police in a marketplace in the province’s Dingan county.
All of Hainan’s wildlife breeding farms have been closed since Jan 22. The tropical island province has completely suspended the examination and approval of artificial breeding, sales and use of snakes, bamboo rats, badgers, civets and other wild animals and their transport out of the province.
Xia Fei, director of the Hainan provincial administration of forestry, said that since Jan 22 it has conducted comprehensive inspection of produce markets, supermarkets and restaurants to prohibit wildlife trading.
Hainan has 228 civet cat breeding firms with 61,514 livestock on hand, 174 snake breeding firms with 482,706 livestock on hand, and 21 bamboo rat breeding firms with 42,310 livestock on hand.
Zhangjiajie, a well-known tourist destination in Central China’s Hunan province, issued a circular on Feb 7 banning the trade and consumption of the Chinese giant salamander, a species on the national second-class protection list and Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
The circular said it is forbidden to eat wild giant salamanders or those domestically bred in the city. Restaurants are also forbidden to use the name, nickname or image of the giant salamander in signboards or recipes to induce customers.
Public opinion is quite clear. Nearly 97 percent of people are against eating wild animals, and about 79 percent are against using wildlife products like fur and bones, according to an online survey launched from Jan 28 to Feb 14 by the Peking University Center for Nature and Society and other partners. The survey attracted nearly 100,000 respondents.
As an online report by National Geographic said, to many Chinese, consuming wild animals is “a cultural outlier.”
“For example, in Guangzhou, a city of 14 million in the southeast, eating wildlife appears exceedingly common, while in Beijing, it’s exceedingly rare,” the report said, adding that even in the southern city of Guangzhou, residents’ attitudes toward wildlife are quite different.
Legal definition of ‘wild animals’
Prohibited as food:
Wild animals listed under the protection of the Wild Animal Protection Law or other laws.
Terrestrial wildlife, including those artificially bred and farmed.
Allowed as food:
Aquatic wild animals like fish.
Common poultry and livestock like pigs, cattle and sheep.
Animals farmed artificially for a long time and widely accepted, such as pigeons and rabbits.
Yang Wanli in Beijing, Li Yingqing in Kunming, Ma Zhiping in Hainan and Xinhua contributed to this story.
