Protect All Living Beings with the Rule of Law Force

　　◆Our reporter: Chen Yuanyuan

　　Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanic Garden has more than 13,000 living plants and 38 special plant areas, with the number of Hainan gibbons growing from less than 10 in two groups to 33 in 5 groups, and the protection area of giant panda habitat doubled...As one of the countries with the richest biodiversity in the world, China is an active actor in biodiversity protection and has achieved a series of important results.

　　The achievement of these results is closely related to the establishment of a systematic legal policy system of biodiversity protection, strengthening of in situ and ex situ protection, and continuous improvement of the green judicial protection system.

　　General Secretary Xi Jinping expressed at the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity that we should "step up national legislation for preserving biodiversity". Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has strengthened ecological environmental protection with unprecedented effort, has taken concrete steps in environmental judicial reform, has accumulated beneficial experience in ecological environmental judicial protection, and has provided "Chinese wisdom" and "Chinese approaches" for global biodiversity protection".

　　Improve the system of laws and regulations on biodiversity protection

　　Xiaobai bought the wild goose online and invited his friends for a dinner at home, but unexpectedly the police suddenly arrived. It turned out that there was a call that someone gathered together to eat "national protected animals."

　　That informants have the courage to report is due to the introduction of Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Complete Prohibition of Illegal Wildlife Trade, Abolishment of Unreasonable Use of Wild Animals, and Effective Protection of the People's Life, Health and Safety on February 24, 2020. This decision clearly legislates a total ban on eating wild animals and cracking down on illegal wildlife trade and shows the nation's steadfast determination to eliminate the huge hidden dangers of unreasonable use of wild animals to public health and safety, thus laying the foundation for future revision of the Law on the Protection of Wildlife.

　　"All things are in the same original state when they come into being, and all standards constitute a unity of laws". China's biodiversity protection laws are scattered in the Environmental Protection Law, Law on the Protection of Wildlife, Forest Law, Grassland Law and other related laws. Legislation is the critical first step in how to protect biodiversity with the rule of law force.

　　The National People's Congress strengthens the revision of legislation on ecological environmental protection. In the past three years, 12 special laws in the field of ecological environment have been legislation formulated and revised and the civil and criminal law systems have been perfected, thus providing a powerful legal weapon for strengthening biodiversity protection.

　　These laws and regulations have specified the biosecurity, prevention and control of invasion of alien species, access of genetic resources and benefit sharing, in-situ conservation and other issues. The crime of illegal implantation of gene editing and embryo cloning were added to the Amendment (XI) to the Criminal Law, which further intensifies crackdown on criminal behaviors in related fields; The introduction of Biosecurity Law is of great significance to preventing and dealing with biosecurity risks; The Law on Animal Disease Prevention stipulates that wild animals that require non-edible use in case of the circumstances such a scientific research, medicinal use, and display can be used after they pass inspection and quarantine; The Yangtze River Protection Law highlights the protection of habitats for aquatic organisms and strengthens the preservation of aquatic biological species.

　　Local legislations have played a role of prior to carry and try, such as Yunnan Regulations on Biodiversity Protection, XiangXi Autonomous Prefecture Regulations on Biodiversity Protection, and supplemented and perfected the system design of biodiversity protection; Clauses on ecological restoration and biodiversity protection were added to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Regulations on Biodiversity Protection, as a full-chain legislation. All these have provided practical experience for the formulation of relevant national laws and regulations.

　　There have been more than 50 laws and regulations related to biodiversity protection in China so far, and the system of laws and regulations on biodiversity protection is becoming more and more consummate.

　　There is the most powerful protection net in supervision of law enforcement.

　　In the early morning, the river was filled with smoke, and the flashing headlights exposed the movements of the fishermen. When Quan, Jin, and Duan from Shiyan, Hubei, sailed their boat and caught fish with storage battery illegally from South Lake of the main stream of Hanjiang River in Liubei Town, Yunyang District to Tianmaya water area in the situation of recognizing the ban on fishing in the Yangtze River Basin, they were caught on the spot by law enforcement officers.

　　The 10-year closed fishing plan in the Yangtze River, which was implemented in 2020, is known as the "strictest fishing ban in history", and is undoubtedly the most powerful protection net for fish and biodiversity in the Yangtze River.

　　Comprehensively strengthening the management of nature reserves in the Yangtze River Basin, and establishing nature reserves are effective measures to protect the ecological environment and biodiversity. In recent years, China has delineated and strictly observed the ecological protection redlines, and promoted the establishment of a system of protected natural areas with national parks as its mainstay. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in collaboration with National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other departments, issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Supervision and Management of Activities Involving the Development and Construction of Nature Reserves, completed satellite remote sensing monitoring of more than 400 national nature reserves, and investigated and punished illegal activities in natural reserves.

　　The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, in collaboration with 7 departments including the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, launched a special action for strengthening the supervision of the "Green Shield" nature reserves, made public appointments with the local governments, provincial competent industry authorities and Nature Reserve Administrations of 6 national natural reserves such as Gansu Qilian Mountain to curb the destruction of nature reserves caused by disorderly development and construction activities.

　　According to Cui Shuhong, Director of the Department of Nature and Ecology Conservation of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, 5,038 of 5,503 key problem points in national nature reserves were rectified, with a rectification completion rate of 92% and the total number and area of newly added human activity problems in national nature reserves achieved a significant "double decline" as of the end of 2020.

　　At the same time, the relevant departments also launched a special law enforcement action for the "Blue Sea" marine ecological environment protection to strictly prevent the invasion of alien species, crack down on the smuggling of precious and endangered wild animals and plants, and maintain a tough position on related criminal acts.

　　Justice assists in biodiversity protection.

　　The judicial protection base for biodiversity, co-founded by the High People's Court of Jiangxi Province, the Intermediate People's Court of Jiujiang City, and the People's Court of Yongxiu County, was unveiled in Wucheng Town, Yongxiu County, a millennial ancient town beside Poyang Lake. This is the first judicial protection base for biodiversity in China.

　　According to the situation, China's environmental public welfare lawsuit has been officially in its infancy, and environmental public welfare lawsuit cases have increased year by year. The hearing and judgement of a batch of public interest litigation cases of biodiversity protection involving wetlands, woodlands, endangered plants, migration areas for migratory birds demonstrate China's determination to actively perform international convention and strengthen the judicial protection of biodiversity.

　　Like many environmental cases handled, the hearing of biodiversity cases requires specialized judicial support due to its strong professionalism. The Development Report on China's Environmental Justice (2020) shows that currently 27 provincial-level people's procuratorates across the country have established separate public interest litigation prosecution institutions, and 1993 specialized judicial organs for environmental resources. The environmental trial and public interest litigation prosecution organization system has taken shape.

　　Meanwhile, judiciary authorities at all levels also actively build a cross-administrative regional centralized jurisdiction mechanism based on the ecosystem or ecological function area to promote the coordination of centralized competent courts and non-centralized competent courts in protection.

　　As a gang in Foshan, Guangdong illegally exploited river sand, the defendant was condemned to payment of nearly RMB 3 billion for the recovery of ecological environment resources both being prosecuted and charged with a criminal suit incidental civil public interest litigation. In recent years, China has promoted the concept of restorative justice, innovated the environmental case enforcement methods, and imposed lenient punishments on defendants who actively restore the ecological environment. China also has combined in situ restoration and alternative restoration and built a judicial protection and restoration base for the ecological environment to perform a function of the rule-of-law education.

　　The purpose of the law is to stop violations of law, and preserving the ecological environment focuses on preventing behaviors that destroy the ecological environment. To stop the destruction of endangered species in time, Yunnan Province issued regulations on the injunctions to environmental protection-Opinions on the Application of the Injunctions to Environmental Protection in Environmental Civil Public Welfare Lawsuits, which clarifies that the court can issue the injunctions to environmental protection according to application before or during the litigation, to provide rules and guidelines for preventive judicial remedy of endangered species. Yunnan green peafowl case is an example of successful use of preventive judicial remedy.