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IMPORTATION OF WILD LIFE FROM CHINA INTO HONG KONG
Starch
1. Mr Royle has minuted on Mr Crowson's submiss
mission of
4/1.
Flag A
35 Pinew
17 December that he is not happy about the line taken in the
submission. He asks "Why cannot we instruct the Hong Kong
Government to ban this trade?".
2. The importation of threatened species (listed in the
International Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) to Hong Kong has already been
banned as from 1 January 1974 by an amendment to the Animals and
Birds (Restrictions of Import and Possession) Ordinance. In this
respect Hong Kong is already substantially more restrictive than
the UK. We do operate certain controls over the importation of
rare live animals, their recognised parts and products, but we
have only signed the International Convention and have not yet
ratified it.
3. If, however, we are thinking of non-endangered species
such as snakes, birds other than birds of prey etc, the importation
of these is not normally restricted in this country either. The
difference is, of course, that the Chinese eat them, and we do
not, but this would not be a good basis for a ban on importation
into Hong Kong. One possibility is that we might ask the Hong
Kong Government to ban the importation of all species which are
conserved locally. This would include all birds (other than game
birds) and such animals as the civet cat and the pangolin which
featured largely in the BBC programme.
There is in a sense a
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/precedenta