Camp Panda: "Habitat Critical"–"Dissent"

Meanwhile, other endeavors to save the panda continued—particularly those attempting to ensure a healthy, diverse habitat for them.

By protecting the panda—and, by necessary extension, its habitat—conservationists are also indirectly protecting the many other species that share the panda’s ecosystem, that are under its “umbrella.”

“If you can conserve the space that the pandas need,” explains Colby Loucks of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “you’re saving one of the more diverse, temperate forests and subtropical rainforests in the world....As an umbrella species, the panda also encounters all the mountainous species living there, including red pandas, pheasants, golden snub-nosed monkeys, takins, snow leopards, deer, and lots of bird species.”

“If you can conserve the space that the pandas need,” explains Colby Loucks of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), “you’re saving one of the more diverse, temperate forests and subtropical rainforests in the world....As an umbrella species, the panda also encounters all the mountainous species living there, including red pandas, pheasants, golden snub-nosed monkeys, takins, snow leopards, deer, and lots of bird species.”

For example, roughly one hundred million people live in adjacent areas, and six hundred million people live downstream from the pandas’ mountainous habitat.

And in an ironic twist, the adoration of pandas has led to ecotourism—which is a boon to the local economy and the villagers, but has unwittingly destroyed some panda habitats (one example: horses brought in to transport tourists trampled and ate large areas of bamboo!).

And in an ironic twist, the adoration of pandas has led to ecotourism—which is a boon to the local economy and the villagers, but has unwittingly destroyed some panda habitats (one example: horses brought in to transport tourists trampled and ate large areas of bamboo!).

And in an ironic twist, the adoration of pandas has led to ecotourism—which is a boon to the local economy and the villagers, but has unwittingly destroyed some panda habitats (one example: horses brought in to transport tourists trampled and ate large areas of bamboo!).

Understanding the interconnectedness between humans and natural ecosystems is a key element in the quest for panda sustainability.

“We have been focusing on identifying how a panda habitat changes over time and across space,” says Jianguo “Jack” Liu of Michigan State University’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, one of the many independent institutions working alongside the CCRCGP.

Jack Liu’s research helped inform a government intervention with the five thousand villagers living in the reserve areas in an attempt to find a win-win solution to this problem.

The government provided monetary subsidies to the villagers to pay their electric bills so that they would use electricity for heating and cooking rather than chopping down trees and burning wood.

The government provided monetary subsidies to the villagers to pay their electric bills so that they would use electricity for heating and cooking rather than chopping down trees and burning wood.

But the panda (like the polar bear and the tiger, for example) has become a flagship species—a species people adore and flock to—and that popularity and visibility is something conservationists can, and do, build upon to broaden public awareness and support for a wider spectrum of conservation concerns.

“By restoring species, associated habitat protection can have a huge, positive, collateral impact on all sorts of other creatures that would otherwise not get the attention."