Governance of Biodiversity Conservation in China And Taiwan

forest administrative sectors at national and provincial levels should set up
nature reserves to protect typical forests, habitats of rare and endangered
animals and plants, and other forests with special conservation values.
However, the Forest Law (1985) did little to protect natural (old-growth)
forests in the process of rapid deforestation.^7 (In 1998 the Forest Law was
revised, paying attention to market use of forest resources and clarifying
ownership, leaseholds, and management. The revisions did not provide further
protection for natural forests.^8 ) In 1985, the Grassland Law was enacted.^9
Additional legislation on the marine environment, fisheries, water and soil
conservation, and land management extended the reach of the state further into
the protection of degraded ecosystems and species.
It was not until 1988, however, that species protection legislation – the
Wild Animal Conservation Act (WACA) – was enacted by the National
People’s Congress, and it was promulgated the following year. This legislation
charges the state to ensure the protection of wild animals and their habitats,
organize regular field surveys of wildlife resources, and to improve ecological
impact assessment for construction projects. As already mentioned in
Chapter 3, the law establishes categories of protection for endangered or
valuable species. Moreover, the law imposed penalties for killing or trading in
banned species. The maximum penalties were quite harsh, including long
prison terms and even execution. Sayer and Sun note that ‘more than 30
people have been executed for killing or trading in parts of elephants and giant
pandas.’^10
Altogether, this is a large body of law related to biodiversity protection, but
it lacks comprehensiveness.^11 Although the forest and marine environments are
protected legally, wetlands are not, and there is rising interest in their
protection.^12 Critical habitat for endangered species lacks explicit protection.
Coral reefs in China’s exclusive economic zone are not protected from coastal
industrial development and overfishing.^13 Plant species are devalued in the
sense that there is no plant protection law (but plants are protected via
regulations). Species without apparent economic value, such as insects, are
devalued as well. Finally, there is still no legislation to lay an authoritative
foundation for the system of protected areas. Parenthetically, in the absence of
national legislation, some provinces and municipalities have crafted local
laws, for example, for the protection of mangrove forests.^14
There is a problem, too, with the practicality of law, the connection between
legal purpose and feasibility of enforcement. One critic with experience of
forest ecosystems in China observed:

‘(Systemic problems?) China has an entrenched system, which is very hard to

change. There have been decades of complaints about the environment, since the

late 1970s. We have major legislation on conservation and environmental

protection. Once we have legislation, really, enforcement is the problem. The

70 Governance of biodiversity conservation in China and Taiwan