Environmental Conservation or the Treadmill of Law: A Case Study of the Post-2014 Husbandry Waste Regulations in China

• Published in: International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology Vol. 66; no. 4; pp. 296 - 326
• Main Authors: Mao, KuoRay, Jin, Shuqin, Hu, Yu, Weeks, Nefratiri, Ye, Liangjun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.03.2022; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Agricultural development; Agricultural production; Agriculture; Agriculture - methods; Animal husbandry; Animals; Case studies; China; Conservation; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Enforcement; Environmental Pollution; Environmental regulations; Humans; Land use; Law; Natural resources; Pollution; Regulation; Rural development; Rural Population; Specialization; Structural adjustment; Victimization; China; husbandry waste control; agro-industrialization; China; treadmill of law; treadmill of production
• ISSN: 0306-624X; 1552-6933
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20928024

As industrialized animal agriculture expanded rapidly in the last decade, the resultant pollution has generated widespread despoliation of natural resources and environmental victimization in rural China. This study examines the formulation and implementation of national environmental regulations from 2014 to 2019 and finds that the juxtaposing ministerial and provincial jurisdictions resulted in conflicting interpretations of the scale and evaluation criteria of the national policy. We argue that the regulations are more than centralized conservation programs designed to reduce environmental pollution caused by the expansion of animal husbandry. Instead, these regulations are fundamentally state-led rural development initiatives that utilize the designations of ecological protection zones to reconfigure land use and promote scale-up production in agricultural structural adjustment initiatives. The enforcement of these environmental regulations, therefore, constitutes a treadmill of law (ToL) that accelerated the geographical specialization and function intensification of the Chinese husbandry sector.