Why do we need a wildlife consumption ban in China?

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is an alarm call to all on the risks of zoonotic diseases and the delicate relationship between nature and human health. In response, China has taken a proactive step by issuing a legal decision to ban consumption of terrestrial wildlife. However, concerns have been raised and opponents of bans argue that well-regulated trade should be promoted instead. By analyzing China's legal framework and management system regulating wildlife trade, together with state and provincial-level wildlife-trade licenses and wildlife criminal cases, we argue that current wildlife trade regulations do not function as expected. This is due to outdated protected species lists, insufficient cross-sector collaboration, and weak restrictions and law enforcement on farming and trading of species. The lack of quarantine standards for wildlife and increased wildlife farming in recent years pose great risks for food safety and public health. In addition, wildlife consumption is neither required for subsistence nor an essential part of Chinese diets. All these facts make the ban necessary to provoke improvement in wildlife management, such as updating protected species lists, revising laws and changing consumption behaviors. Nonetheless, the ban is not sufficient to address all the problems. To sustain the efficacy of the change, we propose that a long-term mechanism to reduce the demand and improve effective management is needed.

Figure 1

Legal pathways for wildlife trade under the Wildlife Protection Law before the ban. China’s Wildlife Protection Law adopts a supply-side approach through legalizing and regulating wildlife trade with a complex license system. The current system is distributed across different departments related to wildlife management, quarantine, food safety and market supervision. ‘Other species’ in the grey box are not regulated by any laws for hunting or farming.

Figure 2

Wildlife licenses, wildlife crime and potential impact of a wildlife ban. (A) The number of wildlife licenses and wildlife criminal cases in 2014–2019. Although more new farming and trade licenses are issued each year, poaching and illegal wildlife trade cases are still increasing, suggesting a potential failure of the current supply-side approach. (Data source: websites of national level and all provincial level Forestry Bureaus of China, China judgements online). (B) The current wildlife trade ban will cut the extra supply from farms (S¹−>S²) and in the meantime suppress demand from D¹ to D² or D³ by adding stigma effect and raising the cost of consuming the species. If the demand was only suppressed to D², the price will increase from p¹ to p² and the quantity consumed from the wild will increase from Q^1W to Q^2W. If the demand was further suppressed to D³, the price will decrease from p¹ to p³ and the quantity consumed from the wild will decrease from Q^1W to Q^3W.