LORD GORONWY - ROBERTS'S VISIT TO HONG KONG: 11-17 JANUARY
BRIEF NO. 24: WILD LIFE
1.
In December 1973, the BBC broadcast a radio programme about the importation of wild life for human consumption from China into Hong Kong. The programme dealt both with cruelty to animals and birds within Hong Kong, because of the conditions in which they are kept and the way in which they are slaughtered, and with the threatened extinction of certain species. We received a number of letters on the programme from Members of Parliament and from the general public.
2.
Following an article which appeared in the Sunday People on 23 June this year about cruelty to dogs in Hong Kong, we also received numerous letters from Members of Parliament and the public.
3. Hong Kong imports large numbers of animals and birds from China for consumption in the Colony. All birds (except for game birds) and many of the animals included in this trade are conserved by local legislation within Hong Kong, even where they are threatened species (as listed in the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). But the Hong Kong Government has, as from 1 January 1974, banned the importation of threatened species listed in Appendix 1 to the International Convention. The UK hopes to ratify the Convention in the near future but there may well be difficulties in extending the Convention to Hong Kong because of the possibility of difficulty in obtaining export licences required under the Convention. The Hong Kong Government has also enacted regulations which impose controls over trade in live animals and birds and which lay down. strict standards which will have to be made before any licence is issued to traders.
4.
There have also been informal contacts between our Embassy in Peking and the Chinese authorities about the trade in wild life and the treatment of protected species.
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