The Licensing System Concerning Biodiversity Protection And Utilization

Compared with the pollution control law,the law of biodiversity protection and utilization has long been overlooked academically and practically.This is not only because the pollution is more obcious,thus its regulation is easier to take effect,but also because the academic and practical circles have almost no knowledge of environmental science.Nowadays,environmental science has made huge progress in research,and various environmental protection treaties have been concluded.In the past decade,the central and local authorities have formulated and promulgated many scattered or overall regulations on biodiversity protection and utilization,but these regulations are still not totally based on environmental science.They have failed to pragmatically reconcile the inefficient regulation with the changing economy and people’s livelihood,and to make it under the rule of law,making it impossible to achieve the goals of conservation and utilization with low friction.Hence there is a need for a review.Taking licensing as an example,this study examines the current institution from the perspective of environmental science,economic principles,people’s livelihood,and the procedures & formalities as the core of the rule of law,and proposes revision suggestions.First,the licensing for wildlife taking urgently needs to be reconciled with the economic principles and people’s livelihood.Take the hunting license and fishing license as an example: hunting licenses is a one-size-fits-all kind of regulation,aiming to prevent any hunting activities of wild animals,with no considering that people hunt wild animals out of self-defense needs,ignorance,and poverty.Thus it is difficult to conclude that the current regulation is in line with the situation that China’s per capita GDP is still low and that people in underdeveloped regions are living hard.That licensing for fishing prohibits the transfer of quota fails to take into account the wide use of economic incentives in modern environmental law,which makes China’s fishing license system bear undue efficiency losses for long : If the licensing quota transfer system had been adopted,the quota would have be concentrated in a small number of fishing undertakers,thus reducing the number of fishing fleets and the impact of fishing activities on aquatic organisms and their habitats.As a result,species conservation licensing is under pressure for reformation,from the perspective of efficiency and people’s livelihood.Second,the design of licensing institution for natural reserves protection,alien species invasion and laboratories does not fully consider basic principles of environmental science and management,resulting the failure to meet the procedural and formal requirements of rule of law theory.The Invasion of alien species and laboratory operations are extremely risky,and regulations must be detailed.Therefore,human activities must fulfill requirements ranging from personnel qualifications to equipment qualifications and even equipment drawings.The issuance of qualifications leaves the government opportunity to interfere with market process,therefore the legality is needed to avoid erosion of rule of law theory.However,the current regulations have neither made the procedures and formal requirements of licensing as specific as possible like in countries with advanced legal system(such as Japan),nor have them adhered to the "no penalty without law" in designing regulatory tools.This is precisely the situation under pressure or reforming regulations by environmental scientific rationality,procedural and formal rationality,and legitimacy.Third,the utilization of biodiversity,that is,the access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources and relating traditional knowledge(the ABS system),has less resistance to reform than the aforementioned biodiversity conservation: because there is not even a complete ABS system! Therefore,a comparison was made between the ABS legislations of nine developing countries in South America,Southeast Asia and South Asia,and the common principles of licensing regulation are extracted to form trial provisions to provide theoretical basis for the first complete ABS legislation in China.