Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Articles 6 and 7 stipulate the agencies that are responsible for wildlife from the na-
tional down to the county level. Forestry bureaus, as variously named and empowered
from national through provincial levels, are given management authority over terrestrial
wildlife; aquatic wildlife is to be managed at the county level by county-level fisheries
bureaus (although many counties do not have separate fisheries agencies, and any fishery
issues are instead dealt with through agriculture bureaus).
21
After a brief reiteration in Article 8 of the State's dominion over wildlife and its inten-
tion to protect it by strictly prohibiting individuals and work units from actions elsewhere
deemed illegal, Articles 9 and 16 provide the most substantive portions of the 1988 Law.
These establish two lists of “key species” that shall enjoy special State protection and
management. These articles go on to generally prohibit any killing of these species, and
provide administrative protocols for permitting the rare cases in which killing—for sci-
entific, captive breeding, exhibition, or “other special” purposes only—is to be allowed.
(They also provide for governments at the provincial level to draw up subsidiary lists of
species that may merit protection regionally and were otherwise overlooked in either of
the two national lists.
22
) These lists, which name species to be afforded either “first-class”
or “second-class” protection, have taken on an aura of tremendous importance within
China, and are reprinted at virtually every remotely relevant occasion. In addition to topics
dealing with law and administration, the lists can be found in topics dealing with manage-
ment of nature reserves, establishment of new nature reserves, distribution and status of
local fauna, and on various Web sites. At times, it seems as though these key species have
become synonymous in the minds of many with the totality of Chinese fauna.
23
In part because the rationale for putting species on these lists includes their being
endangered (
binwei
), and in part because of the two-tiered nature of these lists, some
American observers have been tempted to view the 1988 Law as analogous to the U.S.
Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), which similarly places species requiring federal
protection on either its “Endangered” or “Threatened” lists.
24
But beyond declaring a
general prohibition on killing species on either of two lists, the two laws have little in
common. We should resist the tendency to equate or even compare the 1988 Law with
the U.S. ESA; the presence of two species lists in both laws represents either convenient
borrowing on the part of the Chinese, or perhaps mere coincidence.
As well, Western and Chinese observers alike have sometimes placed considerable
weight on whether any given “key species”
25
identified by the 1988 Law is listed as being
of the first class or of the second class, but the distinction appears to be both arbitrary
and unimportant. For one thing, the 1988 Law is silent about the criteria for a species
being put on one list rather than the other. The implication (and indeed the interpretation
invariably adopted by local officials) is that species deserving of first-class protection
are more important, or more in need of attention, than those only meriting second-class
protection,
26
but criteria for making these distinctions are lacking in the 1988 Law (as
well as in the subsequent set of regulations, adopted in 1992). The only operational
difference between a first- and second-class key species comes into play if a permit is
desired to kill one: at this point, permits to kill individuals of first-class species must be
obtained from the State Forestry Administration (SFA), whereas permits to kill second-
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