A boy plays in a street in Baoxing county, Sichuan Province, where the first panda was discovered. (Photo: Li Hao/GT)
According to a report, formally known as the Fourth National Giant Panda Survey, conducted by the Chinese government, the geographic range of pandas throughout China also has increased. The total area inhabited by wild giant pandas in China now equals 2,577,000 hectares, an expansion of 11.8 percent since 2003, according to a release from the website of WWF.
The number of wild giant pandas representing a 16.8 percent rise compared to the last panda survey in 2003. Although the survey recorded an increase in population and habitat area, wild giant pandas still face severe challenges. According to the survey, 33.2 percent of the population live outside of protected nature reserves.
Meanwhile, bamboo, which the pandas live on, could be affected by climate change, deforestation and natural disasters, including flood and debris flow, which will challenge the pandas' living condition, as reported.
"We cannot lose one panda, never should we lose one inch of the pandas' habitats," Fan said.
Launching a giant panda national park would help build corridors among different habitats and promote gene exchange among different groups, Fan said, adding that the national park would also help decrease fragmentation and integrate administrations on panda protection in different areas.
The three provinces involved have conducted cooperation in many fields, including defining the range of the national park, checking the situation of living residents and natural resources in the area and discussing the plan, according to China Reform Daily report.
The program also involves collaborations between CRBGPB, the Forestry Department of Sichuan Province and the Sichuan Branch of Red Cross Society of China. CRBGPB has already set an area to display special products which will be offered in the national park after it is open to the public.
Poverty alleviation
Aside from protecting the beloved animals, the panda national park could also help promote poverty reduction in the areas. The pilot plan of building the park said that, considering people who live near panda habitats have a poor life and rely heavily on local resources, "their livelihood should be properly dealt with."
"We used to build natural reserves to protect nature without considering too much of local residents' opinions or their interests," Gu Xiaodong, deputy director of the department on protection of wild animals in Sichuan Forestry Department, was cited by China Reform Daily as saying.
Gu said that a giant panda national park should not only protect pandas and other precious species, but also help pay attention to the development of local residents. The key for building the national park is to deal with relations between humans and nature.
The building of the national park also involves the management of mines, the livelihood of more than 200,000 residents, and assets worth more than 30 billion yuan in the three provinces, which needs more specific management mechanism, Hou Rong, deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, said at a meeting about Sichuan Province during this year's two sessions in Beijing.
"The mountainous areas in Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan included in the national park are identified as one of the 14 areas of extreme poverty by the central government. And the poverty reduction in the areas would be more difficult," Du Xiaoshan, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
According to the pilot plan, the national park would be divided into different functional areas and adopted different protection measures. For example, people who live in core protection areas or areas which need ecological remediation would be moved out and relocated to another place. These residents would receive more compensation and they would be the first group to be offered jobs in ecological maintenance.
"A special fund for building the national park and poverty alleviation funds could help relocate these residents from inhospitable places, but the key to totally lift them from poverty is to find them a way to earn their living," noted He Xuefeng, director of China Rural Governance Research Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Du said that "developing a panda-related industry or tourism would benefit these relocated residents as well as protecting the ecological environment."
However, Fan also warned that to what extent the national park should develop tourism remains to be carefully studied.
"Developing tourism is never the primary way to lift poverty; it should only be a subsidiary method. Tourism in the panda national park should be reasonable and not sacrifice long-term environmental benefits for short-term interests," Fan said.
Du said that combining pandas and related resources with poverty alleviation work would be efficient and could be learned from by other places. "But not all places have unique tourism resources like pandas. And each poverty-stricken area should consider their own situation when considering turning to developing tourism to help reduce poverty," Du said.
