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.

Picture of a panda 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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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature