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Trouble in the Bamboo after Pandas

Dropped from Endangered List
Jane Qiu

One of several pandas in the Wolong Nature Reserve in Chinas Sichuan province, where the
animals are being trained for possible release into the wild. Credit: JORDAN ASHLEY NOBLE,
Michigan State University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

The giant panda has become a symbol of both China itself andmore so
internationallythe entire enterprise of protecting the planets rarest wildlife. Now one
of the worlds major conservation institutions has stripped the iconic bears of their
longtime endangered status. But rather than resting on their laurels for bringing the
treasured animals back from the brink, Chinese officials and a number of scientists there
are calling the status change premature, and want pandas back on the list.

Its a remarkable success story, says David Garshelis, a conservation biologist at the
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and co-chair of the Bear Specialist Group
at the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The Switzerland-based IUCN,
which monitors the status of plants and animals and updates its Red List of Threatened
Species every four to five years, took giant pandas off the list last month. The IUCNs
designations of threatened status for species are widely considered the most
authoritative in the world, and many conservation policy and funding decisionsat
both national and international levelsare based on its classifications. There are
concerns that the status change could make Chinas panda programs ineligible for
certain international funds, and could lead to looser conservation rules.

For nearly two decades China has been introducing and enforcing tough logging and
poaching bans, and has invested massive amounts of money in programs to encourage
forest restoration. It has set up 67 reserves that are home to 1,246 pandasabout two
thirds of the total wild population, according to Chinas Fourth National Panda Survey
released in February 2015. Declaring pandas VULNERABLE after 26 years of
ENDANGERED status on the Red List is a testimony that these conservation efforts
worked, and they should keep doing them, Garshelis says. Its a really positive
message.

Even as the Wolong Nature Reserve's roadside banners promote its status as a refuge for giant
pandas and other protected species, the area is also bustling with development and seeing
more roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Credit: JORDAN ASHLEY NOBLE, Michigan State
University Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

But the IUCN announcement has not been so unanimously welcome in China. The State
Forestry Administration issued an official statement saying that downgrading pandas
conservation status is premature, and vowed to continue protecting them as an
endangered species. The new designation has also divided opinions in the scientific
community. Some researchers say the giant panda population has been increasing
steadily in recent years and that the downgrade is a natural outcome, but critics say the
change could compromise conservation efforts and push pandas to the brink of
extinction.

The IUCNs decision was based on Chinas Fourth National Panda Survey, in which
thousands of government wildlife staff, scientists and volunteers combed 4.4 million
hectares of forests in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces from 2011 to 2014. The
survey found evidence of 1,864 pandas in the wildan increase of 16.8 percent from
the previous survey conducted in 19982002. But many researchers and
conservationists question whether these two surveys should be compared. The
searching efforts in the fourth survey were much more intense, combing an area 76
percent bigger than that in the previous attempt, says Fan Zhiyong, director of the
species program at the conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) China.
(The WWF is known in the U.S. as the World Wildlife Fund.) Its not terribly
surprising they found more pandas, Fan says. But this doesnt mean that the total
population is on the rise.

Garshelis counters that the IUCNs decision was not based just on this apparent increase
in panda numbers but on other aspects of the survey. For instance, he says, the
organization regards the giant panda as a species with an inferred decline in the future
due to the possible impact of climate change. For such species, the largest
subpopulation must have 250 or fewer mature individuals in order to qualify as
ENDANGERED. Because Chinas largest panda subpopulation has more than 400
animals, the species only meets the criteria for the VULNERABLE category, Garshelis
says.

Some researchers including Liu Xuehua, an ecologist at Tsinghua University, say that
giant pandas will continue to do well despite the status change. Others worry, however,
that the animals situation is less rosy than it seems. For instance, the fourth panda
survey found that the total area in which wild pandas live had increased by 11.8 percent
to about 2.58 million hectares compared with the previous survey conducted 12 years
earlier. However, the habitats are increasingly fragmented by roads, railways, dams
and mines, says Ouyang Zhiyun, an ecologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research.

Giant pandas now live in 33 isolated subpopulations separated by insurmountable

physical barriersup from 15 such groups in the previous survey. This is certainly no
indication that the panda habitats have improved, says WWFs Fan. According to the
fourth panda survey, only six of those subpopulations have over 100 individuals each;
22 subpopulations have fewer than 30 animals each and are at high risk of dying out.
Those with fewer than 10 individuals each, about 18 subpopulations, are likely to die
out in the foreseeable future if no drastic measures are taken, Ouyang says.

Ouyang is leading an effort to connect some of the isolated habitats by creating

ecological corridors but fears the case for creating them may be weakened with local
governmentswho tend to prioritize economic development over environmental
protectionnow that the giant panda is listed as merely vulnerable. It has always been
an uphill struggle to persuade officials and developers to take conservation into
account, Ouyang says.

When assessing the environmental impact of a planned railway connecting Chengdu in

Sichuan Province with Lanzhou in Gansu Provincea route that would traverse several
panda reservesresearchers and conservationists fought hard to get developers to build
as many bridges and tunnels as possible to minimize the impact. We succeeded to a
large extent, mainly because pandas enjoyed a special endangered status, Ouyang says.
Now Im not sure if we will have the same power of persuasion. He adds: If habitat
fragmentation continueswhich is a likely scenario because there seems no end to
infrastructure developmentthis will devastate not only pandas but many other species
that use the same habitats.

Climate change is likely to make things worse for pandas, says Jianguo Liu, a
conservation biologist at Michigan State University. In a study published in Nature
Climate Change in 2012, Liu and his colleagues found that global warming is set to
wipe out much of the bamboo forests by the end of the century in the Qinling
Mountains of Shaanxi Province, an area which is home to about 345 wild pandas.
Because bamboo comprises most of a pandas diet, the consequences would be
unthinkable, Liu says. There is an urgent need to take climate change into
consideration while planning conservation efforts. Failing that, hard-earned progress in
the past decades could be lost as the climate warms, he adds.

Last September Liu, Ouyang and a number of their colleagues began a separate four-
year study to survey bamboo species and distribution across 13 provinces in China.
They are also collecting information about land use changes, human activity and
pandas whereabouts. Ultimately, the team hopes to be able to make projections that
would help give them an indication of bamboo changes across China. We need to
know whether other panda habitats will suffer the same fate as Qinling, Liu says. And
we may have to create reserves in regions that dont have pandas now but might become
suitable habitats in the future.