Minister, Mr.

ZHOU Shengxian Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9G U

No.115 Xizhimennei Nanxiaojie, Telephone 020-3353 2000
Xicheng District, guardian.co.uk
Beijing,
P.R.China (100035)

October 5, 2010

Dear Minister,

I am writing on behalf of the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom and our readers
worldwide to ask you to consider a proposal for protecting China’s biodiversity.

The action has been proposed by our online readers and developed by professional scientists. It
is based by scientific evidence.

We believe it will both protect an important species and habitat and send a clear signal to the
negotiations at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity COP10 in Nagoya later this month
that the decisive, concrete actions can and must be taken to halt the alarming decline in global
biodiversity.

Our campaign, Biodiversity 100, has identified 26 achievable actions in a number of countries
and has the support of the international scientific community. We are sharing our proposals with
journalists around the world, who will be able to measure the success of their national and local
governments in implementing the actions we have put forward. For more details of the
campaign please go to guardian.co.uk/biodiversity100.

The specific proposal we request that you consider is to Update China’s wildlife protection law
and Improve grassland habitat by stopping large-scale poisoning of mountain pikas (more
details below).

We kindly request you to react publicly to our recommendation, both through national media
and through your statements to the CBD COP10 plenary. We also urge you to consider
including our proposed action when you revise your National Biodiversity Strategy and Action
Plan after COP10.

As a major international media outlet with a global audience, the Guardian takes seriously its
responsibility to report on the planet’s biodiversity crisis. We would be very keen to hear back
from you about your country’s efforts to protect the natural environment and, especially, to hear
of your reaction to our proposal.
Yours Sincerely,

Alan Rusbridger
Editor-in-Chief
The Guardian
CC: Ms. Jieqing Zhang, Director Division of International Organizations
Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive secretary, CBD

Wildlife Protection Law

Action: Update China’s wildlife protection law

Description: The law protecting endangered species in China is not functioning effectively.
Many of the 300 species listed under China’s law on the protection of wildlife (1988), which
provides the first level of protection, are in decline. The baiji or Chinese river dolphin was
declared extinct in 2007 for example due to loss and disturbance of its habitat. Another issue is
that the law permits captive breeding centres, which often do more to supply restaurants and
pharmacies than protect wild animals, even though they are listed as conservation centres.
There are 164 of these farms containing scorpions, salamanders, crocodiles, heron, musk deer,
black bears, golden coin turtles and cobra. The law should be updated so that its guiding policy
is changed to protecting wildlife habitat, restricting wildlife trade, and abandoning wild animal
consumption.

Evidence: In 2000, government advisers appealed to modify national wildlife law. The most
important revision regarded habitat, according to Sun Youhai, the director of the law-proposing
office, the National People’s Congress’s environment and resources protection committee. He
said: “Wildlife cannot breed and live without a favourable environment. In the past we only
focused on protecting wild animals, however, not enough attention had been paid to wildlife
habitat, and that should be strengthened in the revision of wildlife protection law.” A paper
published in Conservation Biology by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Science
concluded that commonly farmed wildlife has a bleak future.

Mountain Pikas
Action: Improve grassland habitat by stopping large-scale poisoning of mountain pikas

Description: Imagine a large, furry gerbil with no tail and you are close to what a pika looks
like. Considered a pest, it is being poisoned over large expanses of its range across the Tibetan
plateau using grain laced with botulin poison – at a cost of US$925m since 2006. This occurs
despite warnings from conservation scientists that the pika is a keystone species – meaning its
removal would have far-reaching consequences including a scarcity of food for mammals and
birds that feed on it. Pika burrows also have two important functions, serving as nests for
endemic birds and to help make alpine turf more porous, minimising soil erosion. The pika itself
is far from scarce, but the focus on getting rid of it indicates a misplaced idea that the animal is
responsible for the degradation of the ecosystem.

Evidence: The Chinese Academy of Sciences voted the pika to be a keystone species and
not a pest. A book of Conservation Biology in Asia has a chapter documenting the deleterious
effect of pika poisoning. The argument that the pika is a pest, degrading rangeland and
reducing food stocks for yak and sheep, is not supported by any evidence. In spite of pika culls
since the 1960s, the alpine rangeland has continued to be degraded and livestock weights have
decreased. Pika poisoning is not even having the effect its advocates want so it is folly to
continue doing it.

For the full version of this text with links to scientific papers, please visit the Biodiversity 100 site:
guardian.co.uk/biodiversity100