Olympics-National Charities

 

Our Mission
The panda trust is the only organisation where all funds are directed specifically towards panda conservation, protecting the habitat of the giant panda, and increasing their numbers in the wild.
This is no easy task...

At present, half of the remaining 1000 or so wild panda exist in unprotected forest. Although protected by statute, enforcement of this protection is all but impossible. This leaves a full 50% of the remaining wild giant panda population at serious risk from irresponsible logging units, agricultural encroachment and poachers (panda skins can sell for up to US$200,000 outside China).

In the long-term new reserves must be established: where possible, these new areas should form a bridge between two or more existing reserves, producing a ‘super-reserve’ in which pandas can move freely.

Unfortunately, even within established reserves there is a major problem. Recent surveys have revealed that most of the forest has been degraded by illegal tree felling. It now exists as small islands of woodland in a sea of agriculture, further divided by building works and roads.

This means that the pandas are reduced to tiny populations (usually no more than 10 animals), confined to these woodland islands, with no possibility of migration between these areas. Such small panda groups are not viable: in-breeding and random accident mean that, long-term, these populations are doomed.

 

 

 

 

 

The Need for Support
There is an urgent need to confer reserve status upon all forests that are home to panda. Even more pressing is the need to connect the small islands of forest within reserves, allowing the giant panda to move freely between these areas, increasing outbreeding and the viability of populations.

Parallel with this, enforcement of the ‘no-logging’ and ‘no-hunting’ regulations must be strengthened. This requires an increase in ‘ranger’ numbers within the reserves, along with better training for the individual rangers. Presently, many rangers are low-paid, and lack equipment and even uniforms that would help build esprit de corps and the confidence to tackle logging and poaching problems head-on.

Ironically, there are areas of forest, ideal as panda habitat, from which the species has been extirpated sometime in the past.

While such areas appear perfect for reintroducing the panda, (using animals born to the increasingly-successful captive breeding effort by Chinese scientists), there is one major problem. To date, there has not been a successful reintroduction of a single giant panda into the wild.

 

So, along with the protection of existing wild panda habitat and increasing the access of pandas to new blood-lines, methods must also be found that will allow the large number of captive-bred juvenile pandas presently held in zoos and research establishments to be returned to the wild.

info@panda-trust.org.uk
registered charity number 1087025

Information from the Panda Trust website

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