PANDA CONSERVATION COMES OF AGE
ombined efforts by the Chinese Government and
WWFWorld Wide Fund For Nature are showing results which
could save the giant panda from extinction.
Gland, Switzerland, October 1995 - Ever since Father Armand David,
a missionary and avid collector of museum specimens, first saw
a skin of "the famous black and white bear" back in
1869, no one species has attracted as much attention in the western
world as China's giant panda.
Yet the cuddlylooking animal is, and has been, severely
endangered for decades. Clearance of its habitat for
agriculture and logging, as well as poaching and the mass flowering
of its staple food, bamboo*, have brought panda numbers down to
an estimated 1,000 animals in the wild, largely in the bamboo
forests of China's Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi provinces.
*At regular intervals (varying from 10 to 100 years depending
on the species) vast areas of bamboo plants flower and die. Although
they regenerate from seed within a year, it can take up to 20
years before the bamboo can support a panda population again.
But there may also be some good news. Years of dedicated conservation
efforts by both the Chinese authorities and international organizations
such as WWF are beginning to pay off.
Pan Wenshi, Professor of Zoology at Beijing University and one
of China's leading panda experts, declares emphatically, "The
pandas have a future. Panda populations are recovering well in
areas where logging has stopped. Many of the pandas in my study
area are breeding."
Professor Pan has been studying pandas on the central and southern
slopes of Shaanxi's Qinling mountains for the past 11 years. This
year, three pandas that he radiocollared each gave birth. In the
eight years before that, in his study group of 80 pandas, Pan
recorded 13 births and only five deaths - all due to old age.
China's panda breeding centres are also doing well. Last year,
they had 10 panda births, with seven surviving. This year may
see yet another significant increase in panda cubs. The Wolongbased
China Conservation Research Centre for the Giant Panda alone has
already celebrated four births.
In midAugust, Dong Dong, one of the world's most fertile
pandas, gave birth to her third set of twins. In September, two
more pandas gave birth to a cub each. These latest births bring
the centre's total number of pandas born to 13. With this many
births, the centre, set up with WWF's support in 1983, joins Beijing
and Chengdu zoos as the most productive panda breeding centres.
"The outlook for the centre is promising," reports
Dr Susan Mainka, after a visit in April, as part of WWF's continuing
support to the centre. (Mainka was WWF's research advisor based
fulltime at Wolong from 1991 to 1993.)
Staffing problems, which plagued the centre in the early years,
seem to have been overcome. A capable research team is in place,
led by a welltrained new director. More scientists are visiting
Wolong to conduct studies. And the breadth of staff research is
expanding - from panda genetics and captivepanda breeding
to longterm climate change monitoring in Wolong and panda
reintroduction.
Police have also cracked down on panda poaching. In May they uncovered
the country's biggest wildlife smuggling ring in Gansu Province,
arrested 12 people, and confiscated three panda skins. In June,
a Shaanxi farmer was caught selling a panda pelt for RMB 60,000
(US$7,200). Under China's laws, convicted panda poachers face
the ultimate penalty - death.
Professor Pan's optimism may be justified. But the animal is by
no means in the clear. The struggle has been long and hard. Panda
conservation began as early as 1940 when Chinese scientists carried
out field research on the species. In 1946, the panda's plight
made local news headlines. When Mao Zedong established the People's
Republic of China in 1949, panda export was brought under control.
By then, at least 73 pandas, dead or alive, had left China for
North America and Europe.
In 1957, China's Third National People's Congress resolved to
establish forest reserves. The State Council followed with a directive
in 1962 urging all provinces to "actively protect and reasonably
utilize wildlife resources". Panda hunting was also banned.
In 1963, the government established Wolong as a forest reserve
which later became better known as a panda reserve. Chinese scientists
had also begun experimenting with captive breeding, and in 1963,
Beijing Zoo became the first to successfully breed pandas in captivity.
Panda research also advanced when a team of scientists carried
out a census of pandas and studied natural history in Sichuan's
Wanglang Reserve for several months in 1968 and 1969. Then in
the mid1970s, an extensive survey of the panda's status
and distribution was conducted. For the first time, information
on the exact range and approximate number of animals was obtained.
During the bamboo dieoff in the Min mountains in the late
1970s, teams checked on the panda's fate.
Intensive panda research in Sichuan's 2,000km2 Wolong
Reserve - China's largest - started in 1978. In 1980, similar
research was conducted at the Foping Reserve, also in Sichuan.
When China started to lower its political and economic barriers
in 1980, it enabled WWF to support panda conservation. Initially,
WWF focused on research into the ecology of the species and its
habitat, building on China's early efforts. Then in 1985, WWF
and the Ministry of Forestry began to develop an overall management
plan for the species and its habitat. This was approved - with
some modifications - by China's State Council in 1992 and is known
as the National Conservation Programme for the Giant Panda and
its Habitat (NCPGP).
The 10year RMB300 million (US$35.7 million) NCPGP will see
the establishment of 14 new panda reserves; improvements to the
13 existing reserves; the creation, reestablishment, or maintenance
of forest habitat links (panda corridors) between isolated panda
populations; and more rural development activities to reduce local
people's dependence on forest products and wild game in panda
habitats. When fully implemented, the NCPGP will provide protection
for 95 per cent of the wild panda population.
The government is still looking for funds for NCPGP activities.
Meanwhile, two new reserves, Laoxiancheng in Shaanxi Province
and Anzihe in Sichuan Province, were established in 1993. The
Sichuan Forestry Department has begun detailed designs for the
10 proposed reserves in the province. Several existing reserves
have been upgraded, and a central office to oversee the NCPGP
is up and running at the Ministry of Forestry in Beijing.
WWF will also soon start work at Wanglang Reserve, an NCPGP priority
site, in northern Sichuan's Min Mountains. Established in 1963,
Wanglang, with three neighbouring nature reserves, is home to
about 20 per cent of the wild panda population.
WWF will undertake development of a more diversified economy in
and around the reserve. More than 2,200 people live near Wanglang
reserve. They farm and raise livestock for a living, and supplement
income by collecting herbs and cutting wood.
"Conflicts over land use and deficiencies in local conservation
capacity are the main obstacles to the panda's survival,"
observes WWF's China Programme Coordinator Dan Viederman. The
local government is unable to provide financial support to meet
the needs of the people who see their livelihood hampered by the
reserve.
Apart from research and protected area management, China has little
experience in internationally known techniques for participatory
development planning and integrating rural development with conservation.
WWF, on the other hand, has long been working with local communities
to conserve nature. It highlighted this integrated approach in
1980 when it published the World Conservation Strategy with the
United Nations Environment Programme and IUCNThe World Conservation
Union.
"WWF's capacity in integrated conservation and development
work can add to China's panda conservation efforts, and provide
a new and promising approach to saving the species," says
Viederman. "Hopefully, panda conservation will help conserve
a vital part of China's unique biodiversity as well as benefit
local people."
Professor Pan's work also provides an important gauge of how economic
activities such as logging and agriculture within panda habitat
affect the animals. His 34,600hectare study area, where
he estimates 132 pandas live, was subjected to logging for almost
30 years. In 1993, Pan initiated a petition to Premier Li Peng.
That led first to a twoyear, then permanent, ban on tree
felling.
Improved management means eventual protection of other endangered
species which share the panda's habitat - the snow leopard, the
Sichuan golden monkey, and Chinese monal partridge. It will also
provide protection for vital watersheds and help prevent flooding
and soil erosion. But most important, these efforts could finally
guarantee the giant panda a secure future.
Note: US$1 = RMB8.4
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