The giant panda is undoubtedly one of the world's best-loved animals

China has made impressive strides in advancing its national park system. The first batch of five national parks was announced in October 2021, embarking on a new chapter of ecological preservation. Among them, the Three-River Source National Park focuses on the preservation of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers, where the Tibetan antelope population has recovered to more than 70,000. The Giant Panda National Park protects more than 70 percent of the wild giant pandas and nearly 60 percent of giant panda habitats, covering all wild giant panda populations except for those in the Qinling and Liangshan mountain ranges. The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park has established a cross-border passage, with more than 50 Northeast China tigers and more than 60 Northeast China leopards. The rainforest habitat at the National Park of Hainan Tropical Rainforest has continuously improved, with the population of Hainan gibbons recovering to six groups comprised of 37 members in total. The Wuyishan National Park has improved conservation efforts, where 29 new species including the Megophrys ombrophila horned toad were discovered. A plan for the national parks' spatial layout was announced in November 2022, which named 49 candidates. They together cover 1.1 million square kilometers and protect more than 80 percent of wildlife species as well as their habitats. The National Forestry and Grassland Administration has drafted the National Park Law and is ramping up related legislation.

The cute, rotund mammal has lived in the area that is now known as China for about 8 million years, according to fossil evidence from the late Miocene period discovered in Lufeng and Yuanmou, Yunnan province.

In 2021, the country announced the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, which straddles the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu. The park, along with a related protection system, was built to counter the challenges faced by wild pandas, including the shrinkage and separation of natural habitats.

There are many creatures living with giant pandas in the habitat, including the golden monkey, forest musk deer and takin … these wild animals can be conserved while we protect the giant panda, which will produce an ‘umbrella protection effect’ because protecting the pandas will be like holding up an umbrella to shelter the other species.

Zhang Jinshuo, then a researcher with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences

When the panda, one of China's flagship species, is well protected, other species that live in the same habitat will enjoy similar benefits, experts said.

Bamboo diet

China is home to about half of the 1,600 bamboo species in the world, according to the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, an independent intergovernmental organization.

Unlike other bears, the panda's sixth digit plays the role of an opposable thumb, which allows it to work with the other digits and hold bamboo efficiently. However, researchers also found that wild pandas will eat animal carcasses or other plants.

Bamboo is low in calories, and the panda retains the digestive system of carnivores, so it lacks the complex system found in herbivores and the bacteria they use to turn plants into nutrients. That means it is unable to absorb the maximum amount of nutrients from the large volume of bamboo it eats, according to the bureau.

As a result, pandas need to eat a lot to get sufficient nutrients from their diet, so they still spend about half their time eating and the other half sleeping.

Pandas bred in captivity usually have longer life spans than those in the wild as a result of better nutrition and disease control. They can live as long as 38 years, while those in the wild live an average of 12 to 14 years, but can live as long as 26 years.

Influence of habitat

The size and quality of the habitat can have a major influence on the animal's life span and population size. According to the results of the fourth national survey of giant pandas in 2015, the long-term effects of climate change and human activity have seen the population divide into 33 groups that have retreated to the six mountain ranges of Qinling, Minshan, Qionglai, Greater Xiangling, Lesser Xiangling, and Liangshan.

Intense human activity has led to fluctuations in the number of giant pandas. The first national giant panda survey, conducted in the 1970s, showed that there were about 2,400 in the wild. In the 1980s, the second such survey showed that the number had fallen to about 1,100.

The decline was mainly due to shrinking habitats caused by large-scale deforestation projects at the time, according to a study published in 2011 by Chinese experts. Moreover, construction of highways and high-voltage transmission lines, and the development of tourism, had split the remaining habitats into sections.

The study's authors said that if the scattered conservation areas of mountain systems could be connected, a larger network of protected areas would promote the movement of individual pandas across different regions, which would boost stability and help the population grow.

Realizing the urgent need to protect the giant panda, the central government increased the number of nature reserves in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu from 15 in the 1980s to 63 in 2010, the study said.

As a result, a fourth survey — conducted in 2013, but not published until 2015 — showed there were more than 1,800 pandas by the end of 2013, compared with 1,596 recorded during the third survey at the end of 2003.

In 2016, a Sichuan government plan for the construction of giant panda corridors said the province had identified 13 such corridor belts that were distributed across major mountains.

The corridors serve as bridges that allow pandas to move between different habitats, so activities, including animal grazing and the collection of herbs for traditional Chinese medicine, are banned within them. Local governments have also planted bamboo and erected screens to prevent outside noise from penetrating the corridors.

In 2016, the rise in the panda population prompted the International Union for Conservation of Nature to reclassify the giant panda, downgrading its status from "endangered" to "vulnerable".

In 2017, the central government approved the pilot plan for the Giant Panda National Park. The facility was designed to unify the management of dozens of nature reserves for the panda and other species in the three provinces, which now cooperate to conduct research and devise protection policies and their enforcement.

The park was officially established in 2021. It is not only home to about 60 percent of the country's giant pandas, but also nearly 10,000 wild species of flora and fauna and about 67,400 people.

The panda's habitat, boasting altitudes that vary by thousands of meters and various climatic zones, is also home to other rare and ancient species. They include the dove tree, which is so rare it has been dubbed the "giant panda of the plant world", the takin, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey and the green-tailed rainbow pheasant.

In August 2022, Zhang Jinshuo, then a researcher with the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China National Radio that protecting the giant panda means protecting its entire habitat.

"There are many creatures living with giant pandas in the habitat, including the golden monkey, forest musk deer and takin … these wild animals can be conserved while we protect the giant panda, which will produce an 'umbrella protection effect' because protecting the pandas will be like holding up an umbrella to shelter the other species," he said.