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Giant Panda
Results
WWF volunteer taking visitors on the Giant panda's tracks. Qin Ling Mountains, Shaanxi Province, China
© Michael Gunther / WWF-Canon
WWF has been working closely with the Chinese government in the Qinling and Minshan Mountains – key landscapes for the panda – to create and extend nature reserves, and restore and reconnect panda habitat.
So far, these conservation solutions are working. In 2004, the results of the most comprehensive survey of China's giant panda population revealed that there are nearly 1,600 pandas in the wild, over 40 percent more animals than previously thought to exist. These findings came from a four-year-long study of pandas and their habitat carried out by the State Forestry Administration of China and WWF.
The survey provided information about where giant pandas are living and the condition of the forests and bamboo they depend upon. The survey also discovered pandas living in regions not thought to have the species. A number of threats to their long-term survival were pinpointed, including deforestation and development activities that cut panda habitat into ever smaller blocks.
Highlights of WWF’s giant panda conservation work include:
- The 4-year survey that was completed in 2004, counted 1,600 pandas in the wild, 40% more than were thought to exist based on the last survey in 1985, which recorded around 1,100.
- There are now over 50 nature reserves in the panda habitat compared to 13 just two decades ago, protecting more than 2.6 million acres and over half of remaining giant panda habitat. This includes over 1.2 million acres of new and expanded nature reserves in the Minshan Mountains and 8 new nature reserves and 5 green corridors have been created in the Qinling Mountains.
- WWF's work with Carrefour, a European food retailer, has helped to provide a good market for locally grown produce such as pepper, walnuts and honey providing local people with alternative sustainable livelihoods, and reducing the number of people poaching or harvesting for traditional Chinese medicine in the nature reserves.
© Donald G. REID / WWF-Canon - By the end of June 2006, WWF had provided 431 energy saving systems to people living around the nature reserves in the panda habitat. This includes 269 biogas and 162 fuel-wood saving stoves. The stoves save local people time and energy and reduce the amount of fuel-wood harvested from the forests.
- Improved systems to monitor and patrol the nature reserves has reduced illegal logging and poaching inside the reserves thanks to training, increased staff numbers and improved equipment.
- Ecotourism is actively being promoted and is providing local people with an alternative sustainable livelihood and reducing the ecological footprint of tourists.
- 500 acres of bamboo were planted when a new corridor area was created after National Highway 108 was rerouted by tunnel. The road runs through the Qinling Mountains and before the tunnel, it separated the 2 largest regional populations of pandas.
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