Final Report - Asian Development Bank

12
TA 4721-PRC: Preparing the Shaanxi-Qinling Mountains Integrated Ecosystem Management Project
Final Report Appendix 5
world. By year-end 2006 the captive population had increased to 212. For zoos around the world the
annual “lease” fee for a pair of Giant Pandas is around $2.6 million. At this rate the 12 captive pandas
at the Louguantai breeding center could return nearly $16 million per year (assuming a 1:1 sex ratio).
44. Giant pandas were first recorded by scientists in the Qinling in 1964, a century after the
discovery of Giant Pandas in Sichuan. A research group headed by Professor Fang Shengguo of
Zhejiang University in East China studied differences between pandas from Sichuan and those in the
Qinling and concluded that two species of pandas have been separated geographically for 10-12,000
years. The local or Qinling subspecies has been confirmed as a new sub-species of Giant Pandas.
ii. Conservation Planning and Management
45. China has drafted and begun implementing a 15-year plan (2006-2020) to restore the habitat
and increase the artificially-bred population of the Giant Pandas unique to the Qinling Mountains. By
2020 when all the projects of the plan are completed, the population of the Qinling pandas is planned
to reach 400 and their habitat will be expanded to 500,000 hectares from the current total of more than
340,000 hectares.
46. According to the plan, Shaanxi was to enlarge the area of the state-level nature reserves for
Giant Pandas in the province from the current 171,900 hectares to 370,000 hectares before June
2006. This was accomplished by establishing (or planning) five news nature reserves at
Huangbaiyuan, Pingheliang, Niangniangshan, Panlong, and Banqiao 12 . This action will result in
nature reserve protection for more than 80 percent of the habitat of Qinling pandas. The remaining 20
percent of panda habitat is found in small, isolated patches, most of which will be protected by the
existing nature reserves or corridors in the Shaanxi portion of the Qinling. Shaanxi Province will also
improve its Giant Panda protection and management system, and build a panda information
management and patrol inspection and monitoring system by the end of 2010.
47. The plan also includes evacuating local residents from panda habitats and planting corridors
of bamboo between the habitats of different panda groups in Qinling, which have been isolated after
fragmentation by highways, farmlands, and human residential areas. Four such corridors have been
established at Houzhenzi, Jiuchihe, Erlangba, Caiziping, and Dashuping.
48. Shaanxi Forestry Department manages the captive Qinling sub-species by operating a Giant
Panda research and breeding center named Shaanxi Rescue and Breeding Research Center for
Endangered Wild Animals and located in the proposed Project Area in Zhouzhi County. The center
holds a captive population of 12 Giant Pandas which are held for display and bred to increase
population numbers.
49. Shaanxi provincial government has implemented measures to improve nature conservation,
in particular the Grain to Green Project and Natural Forest Protection Project, which bans logging for
natural forests for a decade and restore previously-logged forests. The province has established 14
nature reserves for Giant Pandas, including four state-level reserves, and five panda corridors since
1978, which effectively protected the habitat of the Qinling pandas.
iii. Research at Changqing Nature Reserve
50. The seminal work on Giant Panda in the Qinling was published in the Chinese by Professor
Pan Wenshi and colleagues in 2001 13 . In 2004, a selected proceeding of Panda 2000, a conference
attended by specialists, was published and included summaries of research completed by Pan and
other workers in the Qinling 14 . The following paragraphs summarize information presented in the latter
book.
12
Correspondence and meetings with Shaanxi Province Forestry Department, Administrative Office of Nature
Reserves and Wildlife.
13
Pan, W. Z., X. Lu, D. Wang, H. Wang, Y. Long, D. Fu and X. Zhou. 2001. A chance for lasting survival. (In
Chinese.) Beijing: Peking University Press.
14
Pan, W. S., Y. Long, D. J. Wang, H. Wang, Z. Lu and X. J. Zhu. 2004. Future survival of Giant Pandas in the
Qinling mountains of China. Pages 81-87 in Lindburg, D. and K. Baragona (eds) Giant Pandas: Biology and
Conservation. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA.