China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration announced on January 25 that China’s wild giant panda population has grown to nearly 1,900 from 1,100 in the 1980s.
The Giant Panda National Park, established in 2021 across Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, has played a positive role by providing giant pandas with a protected habitat where huge green areas were restored and a patchwork of 69 natural reserves for different panda populations were connected. Covering around 2.6 million hectares with a 72 percent forestry rate, the park is now home to 72 percent of the country’s wild giant pandas.
China launched a study on releasing 12 captive giant pandas to the wild in 2003, 10 of which survived. Researchers have been able to build on the success of the program to boost the sustainable development of panda populations by solving in-breeding issues and rejuvenating the population. Chinese researchers have tried to encourage wild giant pandas to mate with captive ones to increase genetic diversity.
China has cooperated with 26 institutions in 20 countries to research panda protection.
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