Protect all wild animals under the law, China’s legislature urged

Name: China orders complete ban on trade in wildlife for food to combat coronavirus epidemic
Uploaded: 2020-05-26T12:00:20.000Z
Duration: 1 min 26 s
Description: China orders complete ban on trade in wildlife for food to combat coronavirus epidemic

Scope of national legislation should be expanded from focus on endangered species, NPC deputy suggests

Management of wildlife needs to be overhauled to allow for ‘wild species’ that are farmed, another lawmaker says

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A Chinese legislator has called for the law to protect all wild animals. Photo: Shutterstock

Alice Yan

Published: 8:00pm, 26 May 2020Updated: 10:51am, 27 May 2020

China’s wildlife protection law should be expanded to cover animals that are not endangered and include tougher regulation of commercial breeding, according to proposals put before the country’s top legislature.

In a submission to the National People’s Congress, Zhao Wanping, an NPC deputy and vice-president of the Anhui Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said the Wildlife Protection Law should be amended to ban commercial breeding of all wild species, particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic, news site The Paper reported on Monday.

Under the law, which was enacted in 1989 and revised in 2018, wild animals are classified as “precious and endangered” terrestrial and aquatic species as well as terrestrial animals that have “important ecological, scientific and social value”.

Zhao said the law’s protections should be extended to all animals living in the wild in the interest of public health.

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China orders complete ban on trade in wildlife for food to combat coronavirus epidemic

Although the origin of the virus is still not known, it is thought to have passed from animals to humans before spreading and mutating.