Biodiversity is the basis of life on earth and an important indicator of ecological civilization. However, global biodiversity must overcome serious challenges in the face of the expanding scope and intensity of human activity. The World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) Living Planet Report 2020 shows that between 1970 and 2016, monitored populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish declined by an average of 68%. Asia, as the continent with the largest population and rapid industrial development, deserves special attention on biodiversity protection.

Founded in 1985, the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Fund (CBCGDF) is a non-profit public welfare foundation, a national academic group, and an environmental protection organization approved by the State Council of China and supervised by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST). CBCGDF is also a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and a member or partner of institutions such as the Global Genome Biodiversity Network (GGBN). Since its establishment in December 2018, the Biological and Scientific Ethics Working Committee under CBCGDF has focused on animal ethics, decision-making consultation, standard setting, the promotion of legislation against animal cruelty, AI ethics, global environmental and digital governance, case studies on ethical science and technology, research in synthetic biology, and genetic resource sequence information among others. China’s first application against electric fishing, Rivereye, focuses on protecting the biodiversity in waters.

In 2017, CBCGDF established the Anti-Electric Pulse Fishing Cooperation Center, which aims to protect native fish, aquatic organisms, and water resources by fighting illegal electric pulse fishing. Rivereye, developed by CBCGDF and a professional software development team, is a real-time anti-electric pulse fishing monitoring application. It is also the first application in China to integrate anti-electric pulse fishing and illegal fishing prevention functions.

As application software designed specifically to fight against electric fishing, Rivereye integrates functions aimed at preventing electric and illegal fishing, reporting and monitoring in real-time, providing a hotspot map, and promoting environmental science among other things, filling a gap in traditional reporting and evidence collection. An overall lack of manpower in the fishery supervision department, which makes it difficult to effectively supervise all rivers and lakes throughout the basin within the department’s jurisdiction has thus been mitigated. Rivereye is equipped with a real-time public hotspot map, aquatic animal activity distribution, and the latest information and popular scientific data.

Rivereye is playing an increasingly important role in protecting aquatic biodiversity. The use of Rivereye has helped bring about the closure of a number of electric fishing equipment production and sales sites and essentially shut down the illegal “fishing - selling - catering consumption” chain in some areas where electric fishing activities have been out of control. The spread of electric pulse fishing has thus been contained, and a social atmosphere created against electric pulse fishing. According to the CBCGDF plan, more technologies will be introduced to promote the protection of aquatic biodiversity. CBCGDF also sends out widespread appeals for participation in biodiversity conservation in response to the IUCN declaration of the extinction of Psephurus Gladius, with a special appeal for a greater role to be played by technology. (The case has been recommended and provided by Biological and Scientific Ethics Working Committee of CBCGDF.)