Pandodyssey™ Panda Blog

This is a blog devoted to Giant Panda enthusiasts, environmental wanna-bes and peace loving funimals, world-wide.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Too much to bear: developers eye panda habitat

The first page of this article in the online version of the Sydney Morning Herald discusses the woefully underpaid Chinese zoologist who is personally responsible for the great panda explosion of 2005 at Wolong. The second page discusses the negative impact of rushing to modernization and the encroachment of humans into the pandas' once remote mountain habitat.

"Wolong's situation is similar to that of many parks and reserves throughout China where masterplans are actually development blueprints, created and financed by tourism companies. Best international practices would, however, have developers respond to guidelines and conditions established by the Chinese government agency responsible for conservation.

The Chinese Government, proud of what it has achieved in panda conservation, has applied for World Heritage listing for 10,000 square kilometres of Sichuan under the title of the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary.

"The situation in Wolong is that the [tourism] development areas will be excluded from the World Heritage site, but the key issue we are interested in is if there is any impact on the natural values of the reserve," he said.

As one international conservationist put it: "We're hoping there are going to be too many people watching [development around the creation of the new World Heritage site] to screw it up. They're getting ready to screw it up, but it hasn't happened quite yet."

UNESCO World Heritage List

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home