Reserves rebalancing nation's biodiversity

Editor's note: This series journeys through China's national parks to explore conservation, biodiversity protection and sustainable tourism in key ecological landscapes.

He He and his sister Mei Mei, the world's first panda twins born to a captive mother and a wild father, arrived in July 2018, two years after the launch of the Giant Panda National Park pilot program. Their births were a signal of hope for the future of China's burgeoning national parks system.

Nearly nine years on, a growing harmony between humans and nature has evolved, and landscapes and biodiversity have improved.

Established in 2021, the national park covers some 22,000 square kilometers across Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, with most of it located in Sichuan.

Mei Mei has given birth to a male cub, and He He has successfully mated naturally, a testament to the progress made in field mating for captive giant pandas, said Huang Zhi, director of the Ya'an Bifengxia Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda.

Carrying the genes of wild giant pandas, He He and Mei Mei are expected to open up new possibilities for the future recovery of China's wild panda populations, he said.

Reflecting on the center's over four decades of commitment to panda protection, breeding and rewilding research, Huang highlighted a shift in its conservation efforts: from pursuing quantity to prioritizing quality.

"Each panda has a clear pedigree management system. Every day, there is very detailed health monitoring. Every year, there is a breeding plan, which must be approved by experts before implementation. We now control breeding to 15 to 20 pandas per year," he said.

He said the center's captive population had reached 387 by the end of 2024, compared with just six in the early 1980s.

Meanwhile, the country has also seen remarkable progress in the recovery of the giant panda's wild population, with its number rebounding from about 1,100 in the 1980s to the current roughly 1,900, according to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration. Driving this steady growth are critical efforts in habitat protection, captive breeding and rewilding, and field mating introduction research.

The Daxiangling mountain range in the Giant Panda National Park stands as a microcosm for the consistent efforts.

Fu Mingxia, a park employee dedicated to scientific research and monitoring, said only 38 wild giant pandas were counted across the 6,000-sq-km range when the fourth national giant panda survey was conducted a decade ago.

"Because of factors such as habitat fragmentation, they existed as isolated small populations," she said.

Now, the picture is changing. In the process of building the national park, many mines and hydropower stations were closed, significantly reducing human disturbance within the park, she added.

An area of about 200 hectares has been set aside for giant panda rewilding, Fu said. After 30 to 45 days of adaptation in an enclosure, a panda moves to a small zone, then a larger one, before ultimately being released into the wild.

"This phased approach helps the panda learn to navigate its natural surroundings, enhancing its ability to avoid danger and find food and water, ultimately increasing its chances of survival," she said.

With the development of the national park, more efforts have been devoted to giant panda habitat protection and restoration, rewilding training and reintroduction, Fu said. Thanks to the efforts, infrared cameras in the Daxiangling range are capturing wild giant pandas with increasing frequency.

According to the Sichuan Provincial Department of Natural Resources, in the section of the Giant Panda National Park in Ya'an city alone, 1,080 hectares of historically abandoned mines were restored through a national demonstration project during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period.

Since the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, Sichuan authorities have restored 22,090 hectares of habitat, revoked 200 mining rights and removed 258 small hydropower stations in efforts to enhance panda conservation, Wan Hongyun, a senior official with the Sichuan Provincial Forestry and Grassland Administration, said at a recent news conference.

The annual number of wild giant panda sightings in the park's Sichuan section has increased from 135 to 185, suggesting a stable recovery of the wild population, he added.

For local residents, the national park has brought tangible benefits. Zhou Hong, a 32-year-old resident of Fazhan village in Sichuan province's Yingjing county near one of the park's entrances, is a prime example.

Previously, he worked in the stone material business in Deyang, also in Sichuan. After the Giant Panda National Park pilot began, he decided to return, transforming his home into a guesthouse.

"Since the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, many tourists have been flocking in," he said, adding that rooms are usually fully booked during the peak season in July, August and September, and occupancy remains above 50 percent in other months.

The rich bird life near his village adds to the draw. Among his customers are many bird-watching enthusiasts and wildlife conservationists who come for research and photography, he said.

The transformation of Fazhan village has been remarkable. According to local authorities, since the national park pilot began, the number of residents in the village has doubled, as have the number of agricultural leisure facilities and homestays, while per capita net income has quadrupled. Meanwhile, illegal activities such as poaching and bamboo shoot harvesting have become rare.

According to the Sichuan authorities, the Sichuan section of the Giant Panda National Park has welcomed some 16 million visitors over the past five years.

The Giant Panda National Park is one of five national parks that were formally established in 2021, following the launch of the national park system pilot program in 2015.

According to the National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the five national parks span 230,000 sq km, and cover nearly 30 percent of the key terrestrial wildlife species found in China.

Growing harmony between humans and nature has also been seen in the other four parks, the Three-River-Source National Park, Wuyishan National Park, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, and the National Park of Hainan Tropical Rainforest.

At the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, for instance, an intelligent space-air-ground integrated monitoring system has been put into operation, according to Sun Hongyan, deputy director of the administration's nature reserve department.

The system enables round-the-clock tracking and precise positioning of the big cats, and it can also provide early warnings of potential human-tiger conflicts, she said.

Leopards rarely come into conflict with humans because of their naturally shy nature.

At the start of the national park system pilot program, the populations of Amur tigers and Amur leopards in the park stood at 27 and 42, respectively, Sun said. These numbers have climbed to over 70 and 80.

In late 2024, tracks of Amur tigers were discovered on Changbai Mountain in Jilin province for the first time in three decades, signaling a habitat expansion of more than 200 km from the national park's core area, she added.

The establishment of the Three-River-Source National Park has ensured the comprehensive protection of the headwater ecosystems of the Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers.

Compared with 2015, the populations of wildlife such as Tibetan antelopes, Tibetan gazelles and Tibetan wild donkeys in the park have increased significantly, Sun said.

According to the administration, the number of Tibetan antelopes in the national park has soared to about 70,000 from no more than 20,000 in the 1980s.

Since the park's establishment, grassland vegetation cover has increased by 8.6 percent, and local residents have seen an average annual income increase of 15,000 yuan ($2,180) to 21,000 yuan, she added.

Li Hongfu, an official with the Three-River-Source National Park Administration, said a people-centered approach has been key in the administration's efforts to promote high-standard conservation and high-quality development of the national park.

He highlighted the "one household, one ranger" mechanism, which provides each local herding family with a patrol route for ecological conservation, as a representative initiative by the park to balance ecological protection with the needs of local communities.

So far, over 17,000 former herders have taken up a patrol route, he noted. They are not only able to adapt quickly to the natural conditions, but also can promptly capture images when encountering unknown species and send them back to the big data center, providing invaluable analytical material for professional technicians.

"Today, the lush mountains and lucid waters in the Three-River-Source National Park are already invaluable assets," he said."While enabling more local people to pursue a livelihood rooted in ecological conservation and benefit from it, these ecological resources are gradually becoming a lasting source of well-being for the community.

"The development of the national park has won the hearts of the people and will surely lead to an even brighter future," Li added.

houliqiang@chinadaily.com.cn