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Comment by boringg | Hacker News Reader

To be fair you haven't answered my question but stated that there are nascent efforts to preserve endangered fish after the damage is done. I don't doubt there are efforts however I refer to any arm of the government with real power or any institution that isn't related to the government with real power.

Agree species are dying everywhere after all we are in an Holocene extinction event. That said it seems to happening at a faster pace in places like India and China with unfettered development.

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The distinction you're applying seem to be arbitrary. What makes Chinese efforts nascent but American efforts (where species also continue to go extinct) developed?

Most efforts to preserve animals come after the damage is done. That's why we maintain an endangered species list.

I'm not going to argue that China is as committed to, or as successful at, the goal as say the US is, but "not as good" is very different from claiming they fundamentally lack something the West possesses.

> What makes Chinese efforts nascent but American efforts (where species also continue to go extinct) developed?

Perhaps this isn't about nations, but about 1) how sad it is for such a unique species to be extinct, 2) a cautionary tale.

Also, where I live (Indiana, USA) we have a native paddlefish species that was nearly fished to extinction by a ring of criminals that were killing them for their caviar. I wonder if something like that was happening with the Yangtze version? (Article doesn't mention)

> Also, where I live (Indiana, USA) we have a native paddlefish species that was nearly fished to extinction

how are they doing now? recovering?

This just happened (well, from 2019 to about a week ago the arrests were made).

It's less about pointing out a failure in China and more about understanding.

As someone in the US, I know about the EPA and the DOI. I don't however know of such comparable government level agencies in China or any other country.

Whenever anyone asks a question about certain countries, the responses are hypercritical, adversarial or defensive regardless of the questioner's intent.

So I haven't actually said anything comparing US to China. I see you want to answer your own question unrelated to mine - which is alright.

I simply asked, and continue to ask without anyone being able to answer it: Are there any organizations in China that have any real power to do anything to protect the ecosystems critical to animal life or is it unfettered development >> ecosystem.

Given that I wasn't responding to your question, but to a follow up comment you made, I don't see why you would have expected me to be answering your original question.

Nevertheless, the organisation tasked with protecting the environment in China is called the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. To quote Wikipedia:

> The Center for American Progress has described China's environmental policy as similar to that of the United States before 1970. That is, the central government issues fairly strict regulations, but the actual monitoring and enforcement are largely undertaken by local governments that have a greater interest in economic growth.

It happened in the US already in the same way it's happening in India and China now. The Carolina Parakeet, the Passenger Pigeon, dozens or hundreds of native plants. Shoot, the entire ecosystem known as the Tallgrass Prarie is limited to a few pockets where it used to cover a large section of the Midwest.

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