The Wildlife Protection Law respects indigenous hunting rights; how can animal protection be implemented?
The controversy over the amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act continues to rage, as animal protection groups held a press conference today, once again attacking the amendment for legalizing "non-profit personal use" hunting by Indigenous peoples; with weakening traditional tribal constraints and the influence of the market economy such as seafood restaurants and smuggling, it is hard to believe that Indigenous tribes can restrain their members to balance conservation and personal use when hunting.
Chen Tien-hsi, a professor at the Institute of Wildlife Conservation at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, further cited multiple court precedents noting that some Indigenous people do not hunt just one or two animals, but a dozen or more, "Is this really personal use?" In response, Savungaz Valincinan, a member of the Indigenous Youth Front, was puzzled, "Why do conservation groups take the two words 'personal use' to the extreme of unlimited hunting, and even magnify individual out-of-line behavior, to deny the entire Indigenous hunting culture and the right to self-management? How can there be dialogue this way? How can Indigenous peoples have the opportunity to restart collective restraint?"
Indigenous Hunting Should Be Respected, But the Legislative Approach Should Be Discussed in Detail
Last Thursday the Legislative Yuan passed the amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act on first reading; in addition to hunting needed for traditional culture and ritual activities by Indigenous peoples, non-profit personal users will also be within the scope of protection in the future, and after passing the third reading it is expected to be legalized, meaning that a case similar to that of Bunun hunter Wang Kuang-lu earlier this year, who hunted muntjac and serow for his mother to eat, will no longer be classified as an illegal act.
However, the term "non-profit personal use" has always worried animal protection groups: How is personal use defined? How is it managed? How can the name of personal use be used to circumvent actual commercial sales? All of these should be reviewed first before amending the law. Lin Yu-kai, deputy director-general of the Kuroshio Ocean Education Foundation, said that over the years Indigenous and Han cultures have merged with each other, and mountain product stores have moved into various tribes; if the law is to be amended to restore Indigenous hunting rights, it should also be done gradually, rather than relaxed all at once like this.
Chen Tien-hsi, a professor at the Institute of Wildlife Conservation at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said that in 2014 (ROC year 103) the Taitung District Court had a case (Zhen Zi No. 1410) involving three Indigenous hunters prosecuted by prosecutors, who were not only not on the tribe's hunter roster, but whose hunting territory and hunting species also exceeded the scope of their application; and over the past 10 years, in his compilation of district court precedents, he has also seen that some Indigenous people hunted more than a dozen animals at a time. Therefore, although the amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act responds to the basic hunting rights of Indigenous peoples, it does not discuss in detail how to manage uncontrolled tribal individuals.
Chen Tien-hsi said that the United States also uses laws to protect Indigenous hunting for subsistence use, and even allows Native American tribes to "barter," but all of this is based on long-term scientific monitoring data and good management; in the United States, taking the Indigenous peoples living in Alaska as an example, a person must stay in Alaska all year round, and it must be confirmed that there is no possibility of going elsewhere to engage in commercial or other activities, before they may hunt out of "subsistence" needs.
Indigenous Groups: Recognize Indigenous Hunting Rights, Revise the Legal Provisions in Detail
Savungaz Valincinan said that some tribes with a high degree of autonomy, such as Katripul Tribe in Taitung County, not only independently established strict hunting conventions, but even took the initiative to bring those conventions to the township office and communicate with officials. Therefore, animal protection groups should no longer fixate on the term "personal use," but should first recognize the right to restore Indigenous hunting culture, and then sit down and properly discuss how to restrain the excessive hunting behavior of out-of-line individuals in tribes, as well as strengthen and rebuild some tribes that have already suffered cultural disintegration.
Legislator Kung Wen-chi, who participated in the amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act, said that when the Legislative Yuan passed the amendment that day, an additional attached resolution was added, which was that within five months the Council of Agriculture needed to convene Indigenous tribes, animal protection groups, the Council of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant units and groups to draft a more detailed "Indigenous Hunting Regulations," and that norms such as non-profit personal use and tribal self-management all needed to be defined in those regulations.