People who knowing eat products made from 420 species classified as endangered face of up to 10 years or more in prison
Jonathan Kaiman theguardian.com 25 Apr 14;
Chinese diners who enjoy bear bile, tiger bones and pangolin meat now have a new reason to lay down their chopsticks.
China's top legislative body passed a new "interpretation" of the country's criminal law on Thursday that will allow authorities to jail people who knowingly eat products made from rare wild animals. Prison sentences for the offence range from under three years to more than a decade, the state newswire Xinhua reported.
Beijing classifies 420 species as rare or endangered, including giant pandas, golden monkeys, Asian black bears and pangolins – scaly, slow-moving anteaters which curl into balls to avoid their predators. While China already promises harsh fines and jail sentences for people who catch, kill, traffic, buy and sell the animals, it has until now remained unclear on the potential consequences for eating them.
"This is very, very encouraging," said Grace Gabriel, Asia regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a US-based animal rights organisation. "Including wildlife consumption in the criminal law can play a very important part in curtailing, and also stigmatising, wildlife consumption."
In recent decades, China's growing wealth has engendered a thriving illegal market in endangered wildlife products. Many businesspeople and status-obsessed officials believe that certain rare animal parts – shark fins, bear bile, tiger bone – posses medicinal properties, and that spending large amounts of money on them confers social prestige.
"Eating rare wild animals is not only bad social conduct but also a main reason why illegal hunting has not been stopped despite repeated crackdowns," Lang Sheng, deputy head of the legislative affairs commission of the NPC standing committee, told Xinhua.
Chinese authorities finally seem to recognise the scope of the problem. In March, 24 people were arrested for trafficking in wild animal parts and 4,500 products confiscated in police raids across nine provinces, state media reported. In January, authorities in the southern province Guangdong crushed six tonnes of confiscated elephant ivory in a public ceremony to discourage smugglers.
Last summer, customs officials in the northern Inner Mongolia region arrested two Russian nationals for smuggling 213 bear paws into China in the tyres of a van – their load, state media said, was worth more than £250,000.
Earlier this month, three Chinese nationals were arrested in Namibia, after they were found trying to board a flight to Hong Kong with 14 foil-wrapped rhino horns and leopard skins hidden in their luggage.
China to outlaw eating of protected animal species
Ben Blanchard PlanetArk 29 Apr 14;
China will jail people who eat rare animals for 10 years or more under a new interpretation of the criminal law, state media reported, as the government seeks to close a legal loophole and better protect the natural environment.
China lists 420 species as rare or endangered, including the panda, golden monkeys, Asian black bears and pangolins, some or all of which are threatened by illegal hunting, environmental destruction and the consumption of animal parts, including for supposedly medicinal reasons.
Consumption of rare animals has risen as the country has become richer, with some people believing spending thousands of yuan on eating them gives a certain social cache.
"Eating rare wild animals is not only bad social conduct but also a main reason why illegal hunting has not been stopped despite repeated crackdowns," Lang Sheng, deputy head of parliament's Legislative Affairs Commission said, the official Xinhua news agency reported late on Thursday.
The new interpretation "clears up ambiguities about buyers of prey of illegal hunting", the report added.
Knowingly buying any wild animals killed by illegal hunting will now be considered a crime, with a maximum penalty of three years in jail, Xinhua said.
"In fact, buyers are a major motivator of large-scale illegal hunting," Lang said.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Stephen Coates)
