ABOUT WWF- contents focusing on Giant Pandas :)

WWF is an organization that helps to protect the endangered species from the western country. One of the endangered species they are looking at is Giant Panda.

ABOUT WWF

When some of the world’s scientists and conservationists met in 1961 to plan how to publicize the threat to wildlife and wild places and to raise funds to support conservation projects, they decided to launch the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). They needed a symbol, and at the time Chi Chi, the only giant panda in the Western world, had won the hearts of all that saw her at the London Zoo in the United Kingdom. She was a rare animal, like her wild panda cousins in China, and her form and color were the ideal basis for an attractive symbol.

For more than 45 years, WWF has been protecting the future of nature. The world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by 1.2 million members in the United States and close to 5 million globally. WWF's unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES THAT CAUSED GIANT PANDAS TO BE ENDANGERED

The panda is losing their habitat and this is a very serious threat. Already confined to small remote areas in the mountains of China, much of their natural lowland habitat has been destroyed by farmers, development and forest clearing, forcing them further upland and reducing and fragmenting their habitat. This fragmentation of habitat is detrimental to the panda’s ability to find food.

Because they can consume up to 45 pounds of bamboo in a day, it is sometimes necessary for pandas to travel to a new location once the bamboo supply of an area is depleted. However, the fragmentation of their range by humans can make finding new food difficult. Any climate changes that alter the natural range of bamboo species will make these remaining islands of habitat even more precarious.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO PROTECT THE PANDAS

The giant panda is the rarest member of the bear family and among the world’s most threatened animals. It is universally loved, and has a special significance for WWF as it has been the organization's logo since 1961, the year WWF was founded.

The panda’s habitat in the Yangtze Basin ecoregion is shared by both pandas and millions of people who use the region's natural resources. This ecoregion is the geographic and economic heart of China. It is also critical for biodiversity conservation. Its diverse habitats contain many rare, endemic and endangered flora and fauna, the best known being the giant panda.

Economic benefits derived from the Yangtze Basin include tourism, subsistence fisheries and agriculture, transport, hydropower and water resources. The survival of the panda and the protection of its habitat will ensure that people living in the region continue to reap ecosystem benefits for many generations.

HOW HAVE WWF CONTRIBUTED IN PROTECTING THE PANDAS

WWF has been active in giant panda conservation since 1980, and was the first international conservation organization to work in China at the Chinese government's invitation.

It is important to recognize that WWF and other NGOs are significant, but peripheral players in China. After many years of observation and practice it is clear that WWF’s main role in China is to assist and influence policy level conservation decisions through information collection, demonstration of conservation approaches at all levels and capacity building. In addition, WWF also serves as a facilitator; a source of information and a communicator in panda conservation.

Early panda conservation work included the first-ever intensive field studies of wild panda ecology and behavior. Current work focuses on the Minshan Mountains in Sichuan and Gansu provinces and the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province.

Specifically our work includes:

ü  Increasing the area of habitat under legal protection

ü  Creating green corridors to link isolated pandas

ü  Patrolling against poaching, illegal logging and encroachment

ü  Building local capacities for nature reserve management

ü  Continued research and monitoring

Recently, WWF has been helping the government of China to undertake its National Conservation Program for the giant panda and its habitat. This program has made significant progress. Reserves for the pandas cover more than 3.8 million acres of forest in and around their habitat.

Our "Kungfu Master" - THE GIANT PANDA

PROFILE

Binomial Name: Ailuropoda melanoleuca

Place of Origin: Native to central-western and south western China, in the mountain ranges

Diet:  Primarily Herbivorous, however, it is classified as a carnivoran

         Feeds on 99% Bamboo

          (Occasionally eat other grasses, wild tubers, rodents, birds or carrion.)

Size:  1.5m long and 0.75m tall

Weight: Malesà 330kg 

         Femalesà 125kg

BEHAVIOR

In the wild, the Giant Panda is a terrestrial animal and primarily spends its life roaming and feeding in the bamboo forests of the Qinling Mountains and in the hilly Sichuan Province. Though generally alone, each adult has a defined territory and females are not tolerant of other females in their range. Pandas communicate through vocalization and scent marking such as clawing trees or spraying urine. The Giant Panda is able to climb and take shelter in hollow trees or rock crevices but does not establish permanent dens. For this reason, pandas do not hibernate, which is similar to other subtropical mammals, and will instead move to elevations with warmer temperatures. Pandas rely primarily on spatial memory rather than visual memory.

Social encounters occur primarily during the brief breeding season in which pandas in proximity to one another will gather. After mating, the male leaves the female alone to raise the cub.

**SADLY, THE GIANT PANDA IS CLASSIFIED AS ENDANGERED SPECIES!!**

Why are Pandas endangered?

The Giant Panda is an endangered species, threatened by continued habitat loss and by a very low birthrate, both in the wild and in captivity.The Giant Panda has been a target for poaching by locals since ancient times and by foreigners since it was introduced to the West. Starting in the 1930s, foreigners were unable to poach Giant Pandas in China because of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, but pandas remained a source of soft furs for the locals. The population boom in China after 1949 created stress on the pandas' habitat, and the subsequent famines led to the increased hunting of wildlife, including pandas. During the Cultural Revolution, all studies and conservation activities on the pandas were stopped. After the Chinese economic reform, demand for panda skins from Hong Kong and Japan led to illegal poaching for the black market, acts generally ignored by the local officials at the time.The giant panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province, but also in the Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Due to farming, deforestation and other development, the panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. 

Because of pollution and destruction of their natural habitat, along with segregation due to caging, reproduction of wild pandas was severely limited.

China

In-situ Conservation

In-situ conservation means ‘on-site conservation’. It is the process of protecting endangered plants or animal species in their natural habitat.

The Chinese government is the largest agent in promoting positive changes for the Giant Panda. Other organisations, like Zoos SA, work with the government to promote in situ conservation efforts.

By mid-2005, the Chinese government had established over 50 panda reserves. This protects more than 10,400km2 and over 45% of remaining panda habitat. There are also efforts to ensure there are natural corridors between panda populations so that a healthy mixing of genes can occur.

Other conservation infrastructure includes installing communication networks in reserves, creating environmental education programs near protected areas, analysing impact of habitat fragmentation on genetic diversity, and developing plans to restore degraded bamboo forests.

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Environmental Education Program in Sichuan mountains, China
September 2010

Conservation Ark recently sponsored an environmental education program to help with conservation of Giant Pandas in the wild.

An Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD) program has been teaching local primary and secondary students of remote villages about protecting biodiversity in their backyard – the beautiful and rugged mountains of the Giant Panda Sanctuaries World Heritage Area.

Conservation Ark, together with UNESCO, sponsored threatened species posters (jpg) developed for the environmental education ‘road show’. These posters were donated to each of the seven remote schools that participated in the program, and each child - over 400 students - received a bookmark (a synopsis of the poster) to keep. These and other props, prizes, interactive games, and a panda 'role play' helped to cross the language divide and teach the students the importance of protecting species and habitat.

As these children will be the future land stewards, environmental education programs are ever-more critical for long-term conservation of these important areas.

An estimated 1/7 of the wild pandas in the world live in Pingwu County in northern Sichuan province. About 1/3 of the pandas in Pingwu County are protected in Wanglang Nature Reserve and the two other reserves in the county.

Wanglang Nature Reserve, in partnership with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), has a continuing effort to improve panda protection efforts and panda habitat in Wanglang and all of Pingwu County.

WWF is an international wildlife conservation organization. Funding for WWF's work in Pingwu County is provided by WWF-UK, WWF-Nederthands, and WWF-US.

Why Pingwu County?

Of the estimated 1500 pandas that survive in the wild today, approximately 280 live in Pingwu County. Including captive pandas, approximately 1/7 of all pandas in the world live in Pingwu County! There are 3 panda reserves in Pingwu County, but 200 of the 280 pandas in the county live outside these 3 reserves. Therefore, all of Pingwu County, not just the reserves, is important in panda preservation efforts.

Pingwu County, particularly Wanglang, is also important because it borders on panda habitat and several reserves in adjacent counties. Protecting the panda habitat in Pingwu County helps to ensure panda migration routes are accessible. Then, when bamboo in one area where pandas live flowers and dies, the pandas will be able to move to new areas and will have bamboo to eat.

Camera traps provide a snaphot of the panda at home

                                        Education 

Training and capacity building

Between 1996 and 2000, WWF trained more than 300 panda reserve staff and local government officials in nature reserve management, wildlife monitoring, anti-poaching patrolling, and innovative community-based conservation approaches.

Environmental education
In 1997, WWF initiated a community-based conservation programme in Pingwu County, Sichuan province, home to the largest concentration of pandas in China. 

The programme teaches local people how to protect panda habitat without compromising their economic livelihood, by training them in sustainable logging methods, introducing new income-generating activities like ecotourism, and raising local awareness about conservation. 

Outside Pingwu County

The influence of this WWF project may, and has already to some extent, reach beyond Pingwu County.

• The development of an eco-tourism capability at Wanglang Reserve will provide much needed income to the Reserve. This project may be a catalyst for other reserves to create eco-tourism facilities and programs.
• Wanglang is currently using a geographic information system (GIS) in their resource management efforts and has shared their expertise in this area with other reserves.  

• Create new reserves

·         Since the logging ban in 1998, the balance has begun to shift from deforestation to forest restoration.


·         Much of the panda's habitat has been outside of the reserve system making it difficult to protect from the threat of logging, poaching and harvesting for traditional Chinese medicines.

·         Corridor over highway When national highway 108 was re-routed with a tunnel, WWF and the Shaanxi province took the opportunity to plant 87 hectares of bamboo and establish a link between two panda communities in the Qinling Mountains. 

·         Link isolated bamboo habitats

To connect pandas that live in isolated pockets of wilderness, WWF have identified zones that can be turned into corridors of bamboo so pandas can find more food and more importantly meet new breeding mates. 

·         The Chinese government, in partnership with WWF, created 10 corridors in Qinling and Minshan.

·         No panda is an island

·         Pandas live in 20 habitats within their current range. These zones are like islands of wilderness that contain the two essential ingredients for panda survival – bamboo and other pandas.

    These zones are cut off from each other by roads, farms, cities and other human development. 

The Chinese government, in partnership with WWF, are now working to link these isolated panda habitats with corridors of bamboo forest.

By creating green bamboo corridors that link these zones, like a bridge connecting an island, this will allow the remaining pandas to extend their range, find more food and find other pandas to mate with and increase their population and their genetic diversity.