Zhu Annah Lake, Chen Ruishan, Rizzolo Jessica, Qian Jin
Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands.
School of Design, Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.
Glob Ecol Conserv. 2023 Jun;43:e02463. doi: 10.1016/j.gecco.2023.e02463. Epub 2023 Apr 5.
Given the link between perceptions of zoonotic risk and support for regulations such as wildlife consumption bans, debates regarding the origins of COVID-19 are likely to have conservation implications. Specifically, alternative hypotheses that cast doubt on COVID-19's zoonotic origins could potentially lessen momentum for China's wildlife policy reforms and their associated conservation impacts. To better understand the impact of COVID-19 origin debates on China's wildlife policies, we conducted a 974-respondent survey across mainland China, supplemented by policy and media reviews. We examined perceptions of three facets of COVID-19 origins: geographic location, source (e.g., wildlife farm, wet market, etc.), and specific wildlife species as transmitters. Our findings reveal that 64.6 % of respondents believed COVID-19 originated in the United States or Europe, not in China. Further, compared to the baseline group of respondents who selected China as the origin country, respondents who selected the United States or Europe as the origin had a greater likelihood of selecting laboratories/research and imported frozen foods as likely sources, while these respondents had a lower likelihood of selecting wild animals in a wet market or natural causes as likely sources. Despite such varied beliefs regarding COVID-19 origins, support for wildlife policy reforms was strong: 89.5 % of respondents who previously consumed wildlife self-indicated reduced consumption after the pandemic and 70.5 % of respondents supported banning the trade of all wildlife species. Moreover, those respondents who selected wild animals in a wet market as a likely source of COVID-19 had a greater likelihood of supporting a trade ban on all wild-caught wildlife and all farmed wildlife. Our results indicate that, although investigation of COVID-19's origins is on-going and politicized, there is clear support for wildlife reforms in China that can promote conservation outcomes.
鉴于人畜共患病风险认知与对野生动物消费禁令等法规的支持之间的联系，关于新冠病毒起源的辩论可能会对保护产生影响。具体而言，那些对新冠病毒人畜共患病起源提出质疑的替代假说，可能会削弱中国野生动物政策改革的动力及其相关的保护影响。为了更好地理解新冠病毒起源辩论对中国野生动物政策的影响，我们在中国大陆进行了一项有974名受访者参与的调查，并辅以政策和媒体评论。我们考察了对新冠病毒起源三个方面的认知：地理位置、源头（如野生动物养殖场、湿货市场等）以及作为传播者的特定野生动物物种。我们的研究结果显示，64.6%的受访者认为新冠病毒起源于美国或欧洲，而非中国。此外，与选择中国作为起源国的受访者基准组相比，选择美国或欧洲作为起源地的受访者更有可能选择实验室/研究机构和进口冷冻食品作为可能的源头，而这些受访者选择湿货市场中的野生动物或自然原因作为可能源头的可能性较低。尽管对于新冠病毒起源存在如此多样的看法，但对野生动物政策改革的支持依然强劲：89.5%曾食用野生动物的受访者表示疫情后减少了消费，70.5%的受访者支持禁止所有野生动物物种的贸易。此外，那些选择湿货市场中的野生动物作为新冠病毒可能源头的受访者，更有可能支持对所有野生捕获的野生动物和所有养殖野生动物实施贸易禁令。我们的结果表明，尽管对新冠病毒起源的调查仍在进行且已政治化，但中国对野生动物改革有着明确的支持，这有助于推动保护成果。
