Study Of Legal Countermeasures For The Prevention And Treatment Of The Invasive Species In China

With the deepening of globalization and the broadening of the scope of human activities, alien species invasion is becoming increasingly frequent. Since the 1960 s, this problem has been becoming highlighting and deteriorating. The invasive species has exerted disastrous effects: firstly, they threatened the life and health of human beings as well animals, which caused huge economic losses to the “invaded” countries; secondly, and the most severely, they disturbed the biodiversity of the “invaded” countries, which has endangered even caused extinction to some native species. With the deteriorating of alien species invasion all over the world, in 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development established The Convention on Biological Diversity, which is used to handle alien species invasion and the UN asked its members to take this issue seriously. From then on, this problem has become the spotlight worldwide. And most countries began to formulated or improved their laws or policies to combat alien species invasion. The international communities has formulated a number of international legal documents, such as Guidelines to Prevent the Loss of Biodiversity Caused by Alien Species Invasion(Hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines), Guiding Principles on the Prevention of the Threats to Ecological System, Biotic Habitat and Species Posed by Alien Species and on the Reduction of Their Negative Influences(Hereinafter referred to as the Guiding Principles). The United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other developed countries has walked in the forefront of the world in preventing and regulating the invasive species, for instance, they has established a relatively prefect legal system and law system, and gave sound policy support for the prevention of and regulation to those invasive species. All of these are good examples for other countries to follow in the prevention and treatment of alien species invasion.As the reform and opening up policy is further implemented, the issue of alien species invasion in China is also becoming unprecedentedly serious. Since the 1980 s, China has formulated and amended a series of laws, regulations and regulatory documents, such as The Quarantine Law of the Entry and Exit of Animals and Plants of the People’s Republic of China, The Marine Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China, The Agricultural Law of the People’s Republic of China, The Grassland Law of the People’s Republic of China, The Seed Law of the People’s Republic of China, The Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China and so on. Among them, there are some specified regulations to the alien species invasion, which to some extent has contributed to preventing and controlling the these invasive species. Nevertheless, for some reasons, such as the lack of unified legislation, the undeveloped guiding principles to legislation, the lack of coordination in administration, the deficiency in concrete prevention laws, the imperfection of the corresponding mechanism of law enforcement and so on, these legal documents cannot effectively prevent and control the continuous invasion of exotic species. Therefore, being based on its own conditions, and learn from the achievements in preventing theses invasive species attained by the international communities as well as the good examples of legislation set by those advanced countries, China should prefect its legislation concerning the prevention and control of alien species invasion, such as legislation model, legislative target, legislative principles, legislative contents, relevant legal systems, supporting mechanisms and so on.As far as the structure of the thesis is concerned, apart from introduction and conclusion, the main body falls into four parts:In the first part, the author portrays a general picture of alien species invasion. Firstly, the basic concepts of alien species invasion, including the definition of alien species and the definition of alien species invasion; secondly, the author analyzes the three ways tin which alien species invade, including natural invasion, unintentionally bring in and intentionally bring in; thirdly, the author illustrates the harm posed by alien species invasion, such as causing huge economic loss to the “invaded” countries, threatening people’s life and health, destroying biodiversity, endangering even causing extinction to native species and heavily jeopardizing the ecological security and national security.In the second part, the author introduces the current situation of alien species invasion in China and of the legislation to cope with alien species invasion. Firstly, the current situation of alien species invasion, including the attributes of alien species invasion and the huge damage caused by alien species invasion, gives the readers a whole picture of the alien species invasion in China; comb the legislation in preventing and treating alien species invasion in China and analyze and evaluate them so as to put forward better solution.In the third part, the author introduces the legislation practices and experience of other countries in preventing and treating alien species invasion. Firstly, the author introduces the actions and measures taken by those international communities in dealing with alien species invasion, for example, formulating the international convention, setting up an expert panel, establishing a project about global invasive species; the U.S., Japan, Australia, New Zealand and other developed countries has adopted countermeasures suited to its national conditions and established perfect regulation system; based on comparison and analysis, China should learn from these developed countries in legislation model, management system, and legislation content.In the fourth part, the author gives some suggestions to legislation in prevention and treatment of alien species invasion. Firstly, the concerned authorities should legislate with a core, and formulate laws coping with alien species invasion as soon as possible; they should take protecting biodiversity of China and ensuring ecological security and national security as the primary goal when legislating; they should take risk prevention principle, full-process control principle, the accountability principle, the principle of public participation as the basic principles when legislating;they should set up the mechanism to spot the paths through which the alien species invade, combine the system of general prohibition with the system of licensing when bringing in alien species and establish a thorough and reasonable accountability system; set up a specific institution for coordinating the divisions of various departments when dealing with the prevention and treatment of alien species invasion; perfect each link of the law system for the prevention and treatment of alien species invasion; improve the relevant supporting mechanism so as to guarantee the prevention and treatment of alien species invasion.