China has started its crackdown on illegal hunting and exploitation of wildlife. It is a long overdue action, as the coronavirus is thought to be carried by wild animals that are inappropriately served on dinner tables. 

On February 24, the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, approved a draft decision on thoroughly banning illegal wildlife trade and eliminating the bad habits of eating wild animals to safeguard people's lives and health. Last month, China's State Administration for Market Regulation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and National Forestry and Grassland Administration jointly announced that wildlife trade is banned across the country. 

This is big progress for constructing ecological civilization. 

For the next step, many citizen groups and conservationists are calling for a revision of the current wildlife protection law. This week, nine organizations put forward suggestions of revising the law, based on a survey with 100,000 participants. These non-governmental and academic organizations believe that protection of wildlife is more than "banning eating and trading." Their opinions include: 

* Expand the list of protected species, include more species that are not in the national protection list; 

* Renew the national protected animal list as soon as possible; 

* Give clear definitions of "wildlife"; build a system to trace and mark all captive-bred animals, ensure that every captive-bred animal can be traced back in database, to avoid the possibility that criminals hunt wild animal and forge them to be captive-bred; 

* Ensure the transparency of information and public supervision. 

One of the nine organizations, Chinese Felid Conservation Alliance (CFCA), explained in a WeChat article that it is wrong to evaluate a species' value of protection based on its value of economical utilization. The ecosystem should be seen as a whole; species rely on each other. So it is not reasonable to protect the rare animals and neglect general species. For example, hare and pika populations have to be kept at a large number, otherwise the leopards, golden eagles, and falcons will starve. It is meaningless to only protect leopards and eagles without caring about hares and pikas. For the same reason, it is senseless to protect some precious species but ignore the habitats they live in. 

These suggestions have been submitted to the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

(Cover picture via VCG)

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