Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture Biodiversity Protection Legal Research

Biodiversity is an important source for human production and living materials. It is also fundamental for a country's strategic resources and its sustainable development. In the meantime, the enrichment of the biodiversity is an important hallmark for a country's ecological civilization and the level of the environmental quality. Thus, as the society develops, the research of the biodiversity and its protection has attracted more and more attention. It should be noted that the precious tropical rainforest climate with a rich biodiversity in Xishuangbanna Dai nationality autonomous prefecture of Yunnan Province is of great value for researching the legal protection of biodiversity. Accordingly, the current thesis is intended to investigate the issues about the legal system of the biodiversity in Xishuangbanna prefecture.This thesis mainly focuses on the following aspects:1) the situation of the biodiversity;2) the current situation of the biodiversity legal protection;3)the issues existing in the legal protection; and4) the exploration of the biodiversity legal protection in Xishuangbanna Dai nationality autonomous prefecture.The whole thesis consists of six chapters. Chapter one is Introduction which offers the reasons and rationales of choosing this topic. It reviews the literature about the main concepts and details the methodology. This chapter also states the major points, innovations and limitations of the thesis. Chapter two analyses the current situation of the biodiversity legal protection in Xishuangbanna prefecture including a brief introduction of the biodiversity in it, an overview of the biodiversity legal protection in our country, the normative legal documents of the biodiversity legal protection in Xishuangbanna prefecture and its implementation. Chapter three discusses the issues of the biodiversity legal protection in Xishuangbanna prefecture from the aspects of legislation, law implementation, justice and supervision mechanism. In terms of legislation, there are problems including the unreasonableness of its purpose, the incompleteness of its protection scope and the inadequacy of the law system, while there are also issues existing in terms of law implementation including the unclearness of divisional power of the administrative departments, a requirement of improving the quality of the law-implementation staff and the scarcity of funds etc. In terms of justice, issues including a requirement of perfecting the punishment system and the ineffective help for the lawsuit of destroying the biodiversity should be noted. There are also problems in terms of supervision mechanism including the lack of specific rules, the incompleteness of the environmental evaluation system and the public weak sense of self-supervision etc. Chapter four provides an international view for the biodiversity legal protection. It draws on the experience of the biodiversity legal protection by referring to the 'Convention on biological Diversity','Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species'and'International Plant Protection Convention', and also through other countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States of America and India. Chapter5investigates the issues of the biodiversity legal protection in Xishuangbanna prefecture and proposes several suggestions in terms of legislation, law implementation, justice and supervision. Firstly, it is suggested that ways such as perfecting the law system of protecting the biodiversity, clarifying the purposes of the law rules and referring to the custom law of different nationalities should be adopted in legislation. Secondly, ways such as clarifying the duties of the administrative law-implementation subject, improving the management system of the subject and perfecting the government accountability systems of protecting the biodiversity are recommended in law implementation. Thirdly, perfecting the punishment system of the subject of offense and enhancing the help of the lawsuit should be adopted in justice. Finally, establishing the specific rules for protecting the biodiversity and perfecting the evaluation system of the environmental influence by adding the civil obligations of protecting the environment as well as the natural resources should be considered in terms of supervision. Chapter6is about the particular ways for the biodiversity in Xishuangbanna prefecture. It proposes ways such as perfecting the mechanism for ecological compensation of the biodiversity and enhancing the protection of minority rights in Xishuangbanna prefecture including farmers'rights, culture right and the autonomy of villagers.