Scientifically Uninformed Legislation System Undermines Ecological Sustainability of Yangtze River

Legal frameworks typically aim to protect environmental systems through regulations, treaties, and conservation measures. However, without scientifically informed enforcement, these policies may inadvertently exacerbate environmental degradation, particularly when addressing complex socio-environmental issues. We reviewed the development of China’s environmental legislation related to ecosystem protection in the Yangtze River watershed and evaluated its effectiveness by analyzing illegal fishing cases from 2015 to 2021, prosecuted under China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation framework. Our findings reveal that court-ordered fish release remedies often undermine, rather than support, the sustainability of the Yangtze River ecosystem. This is primarily due to mismatches between the taxonomic identity of illegally caught fishes and those specified for release, species misidentification, and a bias toward economically valuable species in court-ordered release decisions. These unintended discrepancies between environmental protection goals and actual ecological outcomes underscore the need to integrate scientific expertise into legal practice to enhance the sustainability of socio-environmental systems.