China 2020 – NPC Standing Committee Decision banning terrestrial wild animal consumption
Law & Regulation
In Effect
February 24, 2020
Summary
On 24 February 2020, the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPCSC) adopted a legislative Decision prohibiting the hunting, trading, transporting, and consuming of terrestrial wild animals for food purposes throughout China. The Decision, which took effect immediately, extends prohibitions previously limited to 402 species under state protection to almost all terrestrial wild animals, including captive-bred individuals. Penalties for illegal wildlife trade under the Decision are specified as more severe than those in existing legislation. Fish and other aquatic wild animals, and species listed in the Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources, are excluded from the food-consumption ban. In May 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs finalised the Catalogue, which listed 33 species — including mink, sika deer, red deer, and Arctic fox — as livestock or special livestock, thereby reclassifying those species out of the “terrestrial wild animal for food” prohibition and into the conventional livestock regulatory framework. The Decision mandates the State Council and relevant departments to formulate or improve regulations for review, approval, quarantine, and inspection of non-food uses of wild animals.
Background Context
Before the Decision, China’s Wildlife Protection Law primarily prohibited consumption of 402 species on the List of Wild Animals Under State Priority Conservation. Commercial breeding and sale of other terrestrial wild species for food was permitted where operators obtained hunting, breeding, quarantine, and trade certificates from relevant authorities. Analysts note that this certification framework sometimes facilitated laundering of wild-caught animals as captive-bred. China’s wildlife farming industry prior to the Decision involved tens of thousands of farms and millions of individual animals according to secondary source estimates, though no centralised official count is available. The COVID-19 outbreak, which emerged in late 2019 with early epidemiological links to a market in Wuhan selling wild animals, created the public health context in which zoonotic risk from wildlife consumption became a central policy concern. On 26 January 2020, three national agencies issued a joint notification temporarily banning trade in terrestrial wild animals in markets, restaurants, and online platforms — documented in a separate Development record. The 24 February Decision built on that emergency measure by providing a standing legislative basis at NPCSC level.
System Impact
Direction
Reduces Exploitation
Type
Alters Legal Basis
Significance
High
The Decision took effect on 24 February 2020, immediately rendering commercial breeding and sale of terrestrial wild animals for food — including captive-bred individuals not previously covered by state protection lists — non-compliant with the new prohibitions. Analysts report closures and transitions of wildlife farms whose business model relied on supplying animals for meat, though detailed centralised figures for total closures across all provinces are not consolidated in primary sources. In May 2020, MARA finalised the Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources, listing 33 species including mink, sika deer, red deer, and Arctic fox as livestock or special livestock; these species were thereby reclassified out of the “terrestrial wild animal for food” prohibition. The Decision triggered a cascade of related legislative revisions: a revised List of Wildlife under Special State Protection was released for public comment in August 2020; the Animal Epidemic Prevention Law was revised in September 2020; the Biosafety Law was promulgated in October 2020; and draft revisions to the Wildlife Protection Law in October 2020 incorporated the Decision’s prohibitions into the broader statutory framework. Later Wildlife Protection Law drafts in 2022 retained the food-use ban while adjusting some provisions. The Decision does not restrict non-food uses of wild animals; scientific research, medicinal use, display, and fur production (for species reclassified as livestock) continue under separate licensing and regulatory frameworks.
Anticipated Effects
If implemented as written and consistently enforced across all provinces, the Decision would reduce the volume of terrestrial wild animals hunted, bred, traded, transported, and killed for food at national scale by permanently removing the legal food-consumption channel for those species, except where reclassified as livestock.
If the accompanying revisions to the Wildlife Protection Law and related regulations are applied in line with the Decision, operators formerly breeding terrestrial wild animals for meat would be required to transition to non-food uses — scientific research, medicinal use, display — subject to licensing, quarantine, and inspection, or to exit the sector.
If local governments continue to support farm transitions, production capacity formerly directed to terrestrial wild animals for meat could shift toward conventional livestock listed in the Catalogue, toward non-animal livelihoods, or toward non-food wildlife uses, altering the structure of wildlife-related rural industries without necessarily eliminating exploitation of the same species.
Enforcement consistency across provinces and species has been documented by analysts as variable; the practical effect of the Decision on actual hunting, trade, and consumption of terrestrial wild animals therefore remains contingent on sustained enforcement activity.
Significance Rationale
Assigned Reduces Exploitation (impact direction) because the Decision removes the legal food-consumption channel for almost all terrestrial wild animals in China — including captive-bred individuals — converting a licensing-based permissive framework into a nationwide prohibition backed by criminal penalties. Licensed wildlife breeding operations for food are reported to have closed or transitioned following the Decision, though centralised nationwide closure counts are not available in primary legislative sources. The redirection question is material: some species — including mink, sika deer, red deer, and Arctic fox — were reclassified into the livestock catalogue and thus moved from the prohibited “wild animal for food” category into conventional livestock status. For those species the Decision redirected exploitation rather than eliminating it. The net effect on total animals exploited for food depends on enforcement consistency and the scope of reclassification, which is not fully resolved in available sources.
Assigned Alters Legal Basis (impact type) because the primary mechanism is structural legal change: converting a licensing-based permissive system into a prohibition framework for terrestrial wild animals as food. The scale change is structural within its scope: the licensing-based framework permitting commercial exploitation of terrestrial wild animals for food was replaced by a nationwide prohibition that remains in force and has been embedded in subsequent Wildlife Protection Law revisions.
Assigned High significance because the Decision applies nationwide, covers almost all terrestrial wild animal species for food use, and converted what had been a commercially significant industry — involving tens of thousands of farms by pre-Decision estimates — into an unlawful activity.
The change is structural within the terrestrial wild animal food system: the legal architecture permitting commercial exploitation is replaced by prohibition.
Within The System
Key Actors
The Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress adopted the Decision at its 16th meeting on 24 February 2020. The State Council and its relevant departments — including the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA), the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the Ministry of Public Security — are assigned implementation and regulatory-development responsibilities under the Decision. MARA finalised the Catalogue of Livestock and Poultry Genetic Resources in May 2020, determining which species were reclassified into livestock status. Provincial forestry bureaus, local market regulation authorities, and public security organs are the primary enforcement bodies at subnational level. Commercial wildlife breeding farms, traders, transporters, and food-service operators are directly regulated by the Decision’s prohibitions. Research and advocacy organisations including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Oxford Martin School researchers, and Save Pangolins documented and analysed the Decision’s implications.
Editorial Correction Notice
Affected practices: The Decision directly prohibits hunting, trading, transporting, and consuming terrestrial wild animals for food. Live Transport is assigned as the practice directly regulated (prohibited for food-purpose transport). The many background practices of commercial wildlife farming (intensive confinement, selective breeding, slaughter, etc.) are not assigned because they are background conditions of the prohibited system rather than practices directly regulated by this instrument.
Key industries: Wild Terrestrial Harvest is the correct child-level industry term for the primary affected system. Meat is not assigned because in SE’s taxonomy Meat covers terrestrial livestock operations, not wildlife farming. If a Wildlife Farming industry term is added to the taxonomy in future, this record should be updated.
Scale & Prevalence: Pre-Decision estimates of China’s wildlife farming industry scale (tens of thousands of farms, millions of animals) derive from secondary source estimates and are not consolidated in primary legislative documents. Centralised official statistics on farm closures and transitions post-Decision are not available in sources consulted. The Decision text itself provides no numeric baseline.
Redirection: The reclassification of mink, sika deer, red deer, Arctic fox, and other species into the Livestock and Poultry Catalogue means that for those species the Decision redirected exploitation into the conventional livestock framework rather than eliminating it. The net effect on animal numbers exploited for food within those species depends on subsequent livestock regulatory treatment, which is outside the scope of this record.
Related record: The 26 January 2020 emergency joint notification banning wildlife trade in markets, restaurants, and online platforms is documented in a separate Development record as the precursor instrument that preceded this Decision.
Affected animals: The Decision covers almost all terrestrial wild animal species for food use — a scope that far exceeds the current Animals CPT, which documents farmed and commercially exploited species within SE’s coverage framework. Most species affected by the Decision (bamboo rats, civets, porcupines, snakes, palm civets, and hundreds of others) do not have Animals CPT records. The two species assigned — Mink and Deer — are included because both were specifically reclassified by the accompanying Livestock and Poultry Catalogue, meaning the Decision directly changed their legal classification from prohibited wild animal to permitted livestock. As the database expands to cover additional species, the affected_animals field should be updated. An ECN entry in the China country record should note that the Decision’s full species scope exceeds the current Animals CPT.
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