What is being done to help the panda?

Luckily, many people, including myself, are worried about the future of the panda. Fortunately, there is a lot that is being done to help the panda. Many groups are working to educate the public on the panda and the threats to its existence. The Defenders of Wildlife and the World Wildlife Fund are among those groups (1). The World Wildlife Fund has developed a conservation plan for the pandas. The plan includes 14 new panda reserves and five areas that will connect patches of panda habitat (2). The connected patches will allow pandas to move to other areas where they can associate with other pandas and mate to increase the panda population. All of these areas are in the mountains of Southwestern China (3). They are also creating breeding centers, in addition to reserves, in China. The most famous reserve is the Wolong Nature Reserve. It is famous for the China Conversation and Research Center for the Giant Panda. The nature reserve is a temperate forest with many rare mammals, plants, and insects. By protecting the panda in this reserve, many other species are also getting protected. This is needed to maintain biodiversity in the forest (3).

Many people have come to realize that the panda may disappear soon. We can help the panda by reducing tourism in the areas where the pandas are located because humans are one of the major reasons of endangerment (4). Educating the public is very important. Poaching and logging need to stop in order to help the panda. The good news is the threats of logging and poaching have reduced recently (4). Humans can also plant bamboo which will increase the food supply for the panda (9). If the amount of reserves continues to grow, the food supplies for the panda increase, and if humans do their part, the panda will hopefully be around for many more years. The panda is currently the symbol for the World Wildlife Fund (6).