Legislation system lacking scientific basis undermines ecological health of Yangtze River

Legal frameworks aim to protect environmental systems through regulations, treaties, and conservation measures. However, lacking scientific basis, these policies may exacerbate environmental degradation, particularly when addressing complex socio-environmental issues. We reviewed China’s environmental legislation related to ecosystem protection of the Yangtze River and evaluated legislation effectiveness by analyzing illegal fishing cases from 2015 to 2021 that were prosecuted under China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation framework. Our findings reveal that court-ordered fish release remedies often undermine the ecological health of the River, leading to discrepancies between environmental protection policy goals and actual ecological outcomes. Specifically, mismatches between the taxa of illegally caught fishes and taxa specified for release, species misidentification, and a bias toward economically valuable species in court-ordered release decisions were common. These results underscore the importance of integrating ecological expertise into legal practice when collecting species information and developing remedial actions to improve the ecological health of targeted ecosystems. Court-ordered fish releases often undermine, rather than support, the ecological health of the Yangtze River, according to analysis of illegal fishing cases in China over 2015-2021.