For the first time China's wild animal hunting quotas will be
sold by auction to domestic hunting agencies in a move designed to
increase transparency and efficiency in the industry.
The new system would reflect the true value of China's wildlife,
said Wang Wei, deputy director of wildlife and forest protection at
the State Forestry Administration because market forces played no
part in the more than 20 years hunting licenses were issued to five
State-run agencies.
"Through auctions, quotas can be distributed fairly because the
agency offering the highest price gets the quota," said Wang.
Quotas are permits for foreign hunters, the predominant clients
at Chinese hunting ranges; and stipulate where, when and what to
kill.
Designed to protect wild animals from poaching the hunting
quotas are set in reference to the state of wildlife
conservation.
The quotas are currently set for about 30 international-level
hunting areas in provinces and autonomous regions including Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Gansu, Sichuan and Xinjiang. The first quota auction will be held
in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, on
August 13 and will include the sale of quotas for approximately 200
species.
To ease worries that endangered wildlife could be affected Wang
explained that the number of animals entering the auction was too
small to harm species diversity. "The number is lower than
one-thousandth of the species at the hunting park," he said.
Hunting agencies said the new policy would simplify the
application procedures. "Before we had to apply for quotas each
time a hunter came to us," said Cao Liang, director of the China
Wildlife Conservation Hunting Agency, the first of its kind in
China. "Now we can buy what we need once a year and make use of
them whenever we want within that year."
(China Daily August 10, 2006)