Southwest China's Sichuan Province is planning to create an international panda tour route by integrating the panda research centers and reserves to attract more tourists, even as it sparks concerns over excessive human interference with pandas in the area.
The province says it will create an "international giant panda ecological tour route" by integrating the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, 46 nature reserves and three mountainous panda habitats, local newspaper Chengdu Business News reported on Thursday.
Sichuan said it also plans to construct four other panda-themed projects in the province during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), namely "Panda Happy Land" in Dujiangyan, "Panda Hometown" in Baoxing, "Panda Homeland" in Wolong and "Panda Valley" in Bifengxia, according to the Sichuan Development and Reform Commission (DRC).
"The tour route serves to promote Sichuan's tourism and the economic development of cities along the route," Li Desheng, deputy director of the Wolong China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Sichuan Province, told the Global Times.
Meanwhile, the Sichuan government said it's planning to construct a 53-hectare theme park called Panda Kingdom in Chengdu, featuring a hotel, a research area, a park and panda-themed businesses.
Li added they are looking forward to working with international organizations and experts on giant pandas to promote Sichuan and its panda culture to foreign tourists, "since pandas are gaining acceptance in other countries."
The Netherlands received a pair of pandas, Xingya and Wuwen, in April, which built the 9,000-square-meter "Pandasia" at a cost of 7 million euros (about $7 million), considered the most luxurious panda garden.
Jennifer Yuh Nelson, director of the animated blockbuster Kung Fu Panda, told the Xinhua News Agency in 2016 that the production team visited a panda breeding base in Sichuan to observe the animal, which helped them improve on the previous digital modeling of the pandas' fur and motions.
The Sichuan DRC said the route's target market are tourists from both China and abroad, as the number of panda fans around the world is increasing.
Sichuan is home to the world's largest natural giant panda habitat. As of 2013, there were 1,387 wild pandas living in Sichuan, or 74.4 percent of China's total, as well as 314 pandas in captivity, the report said.
Threat to habitat
However, the route also sparked heated discussions among panda fans, as it will pass through the habitat of wild pandas.
"The wild pandas' habitat will be severely damaged once the tourists arrive and disturb the pandas' lives," a panda fan surnamed Zhou told the Global Times, adding that building the route will also threaten the habitat.
A World Wildlife Fund report said roads and railroads are increasingly fragmenting the forest, which further isolates panda populations and prevents mating, while forest destruction reduces their access to the bamboo they need to survive.
But experts insist the project is needed to protect wild pandas.
"Wild pandas need to be protected in conservation areas," said Zhao Huawen, founder of the Eudemonia Bank, an organization based in Chengdu dedicated to protecting the panda's habitat, adding that wild pandas face much more severe threats from nature than damaged habitats.
Poaching, food poisoning, low reproductive rates and human lopping of bamboos can all threaten wild pandas, Zhao said.
It is necessary to get local residents to help protect wild pandas, Zhao said, noting that poverty once drove the villagers to poach pandas. But after they benefit from the tourist route, they will learn to value and cherish pandas.
Zhao added that the route is part of China's Giant Panda National Park, which was proposed last year, to help the endangered animals mingle and enrich their gene pool.
