Author: Han Xuesong (Project Coordinator of Shanshui Nature Conservation Center), Zhao Xiang (Conservation Director of Shanshui Nature Conservation Center), Lv Zhi (Professor, School of Life Sciences, Peking University)
Following the decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on comprehensively banning illegal wildlife trade, eliminating the bad habit of indiscriminately eating wild animals, and effectively protecting the people's life, health and safety, on February 27, the State Forestry and Grassland Administration said that it would speed up the adjustment of the "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection" (hereinafter referred to as the "Protection List"), the "Directory of Terrestrial Wild Animals with Important Ecological, Scientific and Social Value Under National Protection" (hereinafter referred to as the "Three Haves") and the local key protected wild animals. Proactively extend the scope of protection management.
The list of protected wild animals issued in January 1989 and the list of terrestrial wild animals under national protection or of important economic and scientific research value (revised in 2017 to the "Three Haves" list) issued in August 2000 are two national wildlife protection lists in China, and the two lists, together with the list of wild animals under key local protection, constitute the main basis for the protection of wild animals in China.
According to the available list of animal species in China, the Protected List and the "Three Haves" List contain a total of 1804 species of vertebrates, including 215 species of mammals, 941 species of birds, 262 species of amphibians and 386 species of reptiles. However, since the date of their publication, only the Protected List has undergone a fine-tuning in 2003, and the "Three Haves" List has never been updated. At present, the conservation issues brought about by the development of scientific research and social and economic activities are constantly changing, and the response of all sectors of society to wildlife protection and public health security is becoming increasingly sensitive and strong, but the many deficiencies in the "Protection List", the "Three Haves" List and the local key protection list have greatly limited the management effectiveness of China's biodiversity conservation and public safety.
At present, the list mainly has the following problems:
◆ The list has not been updated according to the actual status of the species. In recent years, many species have been listed as critically endangered by the IUCN (hereinafter referred to as "IUCN") Red List for various reasons, such as the white-bellied heron in birds and the Helan Mountain pika and Ili pika that have been rediscovered in recent years, which have not yet been included in the existing list; secondly, in recent years, under the continuous promotion of scientific research, field investigation and citizen science, China has discovered many new species such as the white-cheeked macaque, most of which are endemic to China or the region, which has high scientific research value. However, it was also not covered by the Protection List in a timely manner. Of the threatened species covered by the IUCN Red List, 229 species are not on the Conservation List.
◆ The level of protection of recorded species has not been improved in a timely and effective manner. Wild animals that were originally listed as "three haves" or low protection levels such as national level II have been shrinking in recent years due to illegal hunting and habitat loss, for example, in the "three haves" list, 19 species are listed as critically endangered (CR) by the IUCN Red List, including blue-headed diving ducks, spoon-billed sandpipers, yellow-breasted buntings, etc.; there are 11 species of protected animals such as finless porpoises, pangolins, hawksbill turtles, etc. The "Protected List" Level II protected animals are listed as critically endangered and should be given more protection attention. In addition, IUCN population status assessments are based on the global population of species, and domestic population status may not be as optimistic as the global situation – such as eurasian otters, chestnut-spotted buntings, etc., are also negatively affected by low conservation levels in actual conservation efforts.
◆ The list failed to match the taxonomic adjustment in time, resulting in difficulties in retrieving the listed species. Due to the development of taxonomy, the Chinese and scientific names of many species have been different from those at the beginning of the release of the list, such as the black-browed snake has been adjusted to the black-browed morning snake; due to the difference in the classification system used in the release of the list or the change of classification, there is no such thing, such as the "Northeast Black Rabbit", "Kucha Sand Lizard" and "Eastern Xinjiang Sand Python" in the "Three Haves" List; the objects of overall protection with advanced classification orders slide out of the scope of protection due to classification adjustment, such as the Northern Furgu in the "Finpods (all species)" in the original "Protection List", Five species, including the North Sea Lion and the Bearded Seal, were removed from the list due to their inclusion in the carnivorous order.
For example, among the 1804 species of wild animals protected by the "Protected List" and the "Three Haves" List, more than 130 species of bats and 5 species of marmots in China have not been seen on the list, and these two groups are the main carriers of SARS in 2003 and plague and coronavirus in 2019, and the lack of corresponding protection basis makes public health safety face greater risks.
According to Article 10 of Chapter II of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Wild Animals, "wild animals under local key protection refer to wild animals under key national protection that are under key protection by provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government.". Among the 31 provincial-level administrative regions in Chinese mainland, except for the Tibet Autonomous Region, a list of wildlife under local key protection has been successively issued, but in a total of about 1015 provincial-level protected wild animals, 119 species overlap with the species on the "Protected List" and 730 species overlap with the "Three Haves" List, accounting for 83.6% of the total local protected species.
Whether it is included in the list will directly affect the research investment, conservation policies, management practices, law enforcement and justice and public education of species, including the establishment and investment of species protection projects, the establishment or upgrading of nature reserves, the planning of national parks, the delineation of important habitats, the fight against poaching and illegal trade, the identification and punishment of related cases, and the public awareness of the environment and the popularization of science. Therefore, the above-mentioned problems have greatly limited the protection and management of wild animals in China, and have brought many inconveniences and difficulties to the actual law enforcement process.
Based on this, in addition to the timely adjustment, updating and addition of the "List of Wild Animals under National Key Protection", in order to reduce the difficulty of law enforcement and improve the effectiveness of protection, it is proposed to replace the current "three haves" animals and local key protection lists with the "National List of General Wild Animals under Protection", and to include the "three noes" species such as bats and marmots that were not previously included in the above list, so that they can complement the "List of Key Wild Animals for National Protection" and expand the scope of protection to all wild animals. Form a comprehensive and clear wildlife protection management system.
Due to the continuous development of taxonomy and the constant change of the actual threat of species, it is difficult for a list to be seamlessly connected with specific conservation needs anytime, anywhere. Therefore, it is more important to jump out of the list, formulate regular list update procedures, strengthen the legislation, law enforcement and legal popularization of wildlife protection, strengthen supervision and inspection, severely crack down on illegal trade in wild animals, and reverse the bad habit of "eating wild meat" in society, so as to give the most reliable guarantee for China's wildlife protection and public health security.
Guangming Daily (2020.02.29 11th edition)