China’s top political body has banned the trade and consumption of wild animals, making the suspension enacted in January 2020 permanent, as the coronavirus - thought to have originated in a Chinese wildlife market - continues to spread across the globe.

The National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) has approved the ban in an effort to “safeguard public health and ecological security”. The ban has two primary goals: to completely stop the trade of wildlife as well a ban on the eating of wild animals. Furthermore, the management of wild animals used in scientific and medical research has been strengthened, by requiring successful completion with a strict and rigorous governmental approval process.

The ban on consumption includes wildlife protected by the law, other terrestrial animals, and terrestrial wild animals in breeding farms. The ban also extends to a prohibition on the hunting, trading and transport of terrestrial wild animals for eating. Environmentalist and wildlife conservationists have been advocating for a ban for over three decades, but have welcomed the recent decision.

China’s existing wildlife protecting law, which covers wildlife conservation, trade and utilisation, was enacted back in 1989, but is riddled with loopholes as consumption of wild animals and captive breeding was allowed for commercial purposes. The current legislation only protects limited species of wildlife, but the ban now forbids eating in a general sense - not only animals living in the wild but also the ones in the breeding industry.

In 2007, the Chinese government sponsored a report authored by the Chinese Academy of Engineering which calculated that China’s wildlife trade and consumption industry was valued at 520 billion yuan (HK$576 billion) and employed more than 14 million people. More than half the people in the industry work in the fur and leather industry and another 6.2 million people in breeding farms or processing animals for food.

The ban imposed will mean severe economic losses for breeders, especially in some impoverished regions of China which rely on wildlife farming as a source of income, so the Chinese government may need to consider providing funding and support while they shift into other businesses.