Sinosphere
Regulations Will Increase Commercialization of Wild Animals, Experts Say
December 17, 2013
traditional medicine industries, and strongly oppose the plan.
The proposals, dubbed the
“Domestication and Breeding Licenses for Wild Animals,” would add two
new licenses for wild animal use: in circuses and in “production and
business,” according to those who have seen the official documents. This
is in addition to three existing licenses, they said: rescue and
protection, scientific research and popular science education.
The Forestry Administration first presented the
proposals to the public for comment on online forums on Nov. 20, but
will stop soliciting opinions on Friday. On Monday, representatives of
animal rights groups and academics held a seminar in the Ministry of
Environmental Protection’s Center for Environmental Education and
Communications to air their views. No officials were present.
“These things — animal circuses
and the trade in wild animals — have long existed and now they’re
saying, let’s manage them better. So the government may mean to regulate
and control it, but in the process it is legalizing it,” said Jin
Yipeng, a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing and a
trained veterinarian, said after the event. “It’s a step backwards.”
Animal welfare advocates,
he said, fear the move reflects simple commercial greed. “People can
make money out of this,” Mr. Jin said.
The Chinese government is
under growing pressure from major traditional Chinese medicine companies
to increase the number of bears kept in farms where their bile is
extracted as a pharmaceutical ingredient.
“The government can’t get
away from seeing wild animals as a resource,” rather than a category of
life that should be protected, said one animal welfare advocate who
declined to give his name.
Article 1 of the proposed
regulations states that they aim “to protect, develop and reasonably use
the resource of wild animals, strengthen the domestication and breeding
of wild animals, and protect the legal rights of people and firms
domesticating and breeding wild animals.”
Animal welfare advocates at
the seminar said animal performances in circuses inevitably involve
cruelty, and they showed photographs of bleeding and injured animals.
The government stopped issuing news licenses for bear bile farms
in 1993, they said, but animal welfare advocates fear this would
formally ease restrictions that are already being informally breached.
The government says there are 68 licensed farms operating today, holding
thousands of bears.“We should be talking about protecting wild animals,
but a lot of the points in the proposed regulations are about expanding
their commercial use,” said Mang Ping, a professor at the Central
Institute of Socialism who researches environmental ethics.
The proposals contradict
China’s wild animal protection law, which does not mention circuses or
commercialization, Ms. Mang said. And they violate the spirit of
decisions emanating from both the 18th Communist Party Congress in 2012,
and the recently concluded Third Plenum, which called for the “most
strict” protection of the environment, she said.
“It’s quite unusual for the
government to use the phrase ‘most strict,’ ” Ms. Mang said. “So one
problem with these proposals is that they don’t fit with the law” or
recent party decisions.
時報看中國
中國野生動物管理辦法遭動物權益倡導者反對
狄雨霏 2013年12月17日
Jianan Yu/Reuters
蘇州，獼猴被用鏈條綁到牆上，以便加強它的腿部力量，參加馬戲團表演。
一些已看到官方文件的人士透露，這項名為《國家重點保護野
生動物馴養繁殖許可證管理方法》的提案將新增兩項野生動物利用許可類別，一項是馬戲表演，另一項是「生產經營」。他們說，這兩項許可類別是在現有類別基礎
之上新增的，現有的三項許可類別是保護拯救、科學研究及科普教育。
- 檢視大圖
Mark/European Pressphoto Agency被圈養在瀋陽的東北虎。
今年11月20日，國家林業局首次在網上論壇公布了上述辦法的草案，旨在徵求意見，不過，意見徵求活動將於本周五結束。本周一，動物權益組織代表和學術界代表在環境保護部宣傳教育中心舉行研討會，表達了自己的觀點。沒有官員列席此次研討會。
位於北京的中國農業大學教授、訓練有素的獸醫金藝鵬在會後說，「這些行為——動物馬戲和野生動物交易——長期以來一直存在，現在他們說，我們要更好地管理這些行為。如此說來，政府可能有意規範和管理此類行為，可是，政府會在這個過程中使此類行為合法化。這是一種倒退。」
他說，動物權益倡導者擔憂此舉反映的是純粹的商業貪慾。金藝鵬說，「人們可以從中牟利」。
中國政府面臨日漸增長的壓力，壓力來自一些大型中醫藥公司，他們要求增加圈養狗熊的數量，為的是從狗熊的膽汁當中提取藥用成分。
一名不願具名的動物權益倡導者表示，「政府就是放不下將野生動物當成資源的觀點」，沒有將它們視作應該受到保護的生命。
林業局所提管理辦法的第一條寫道，他們的目的是「保護、發展和合理利用野生動物資源，加強野生動物馴養繁殖管理工作，維護野生動物馴養繁殖單位和個人的合法權益」。
參與前述研討會的動物權益倡導者表示，馬戲團的動物表演必然會涉及殘忍對待。他們還展示了動物流血受傷的照片。他們稱，政府已於1993年停止為熊膽養殖場頒發新許可證，但動物權益倡導者擔心，林業局的辦法意味着正式放寬相關限制，與此同時，本來就有人在偷偷突破這些限制。政府表示，目前共有68家獲得許可證的養殖場在營業，這些養殖場養了數千頭熊。中央社會主義學院研究環境倫理的莽萍教授表示，「我們應該討論的是如何保護野生動物，然而，林業局提出的管理辦法當中，許多地方說的都是擴大野生動物的商業用途。」
莽萍表示，擬議中的管理辦法與中國《野生動物保護法》相矛盾，後者沒有提及馬戲團或商業化用途。莽萍表示，它們違背了2012年召開的中共十八大會議決定的精神，也違背了最近結束的三中全會所做決定的精神，三中全會要求實行「最嚴格的」環境保護。
「政府使用了『最嚴格』一詞，這是相當不尋常的，」莽萍說。「因此，這些提議存在一個問題，那就是不符合法律」和黨的最近決定。
狄雨霏(Didi Kirsten Tatlow)是《紐約時報》駐京記者。翻譯：張薇、許欣
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