The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, China

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The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries (29° 53' 47" to 31° 21' 49"N and 102° 08' 45" to 103° 23' 45"E) is a World Heritage Site. The forested and ice-capped mountains on the western edge of the Sichuan basin contain the world's largest population of giant pandas, the emblem of the World Wildlife Fund. It is also botanically a 'hotspot', the richest site of any temperate region, having over 4,000 species of flowering plants and a great number of relict and endangered (IUCN Red List Criteria for Endangered) plants and animals.

Mixed Natural and Cultural World Heritage Composite Site

  • 2000: Mount Qingcheng and Dujiangyan Irrigation System designated a Cultural World Heritage site under cultural Criteria ii, iv and vi.
  • 2006: Inscribed on the World Heritage List under Natural Criterion x

International Designation (Part)

1979: Wolong designated a Biosphere Reserve under the UNESCO Man & Biosphere Programme (200,000 hectares).

Geographical Location

300px-Dujidam.jpg Aerial view of the Dujiangyan Dam. (Source: CBD Implementation of China)

The Situated in the Qionglai and Jiajin mountains fringing the Sichuan basin on the west, 100 kilometers (km) from Chengdu city, between 29° 53' 47" to 31° 21' 49"N and 102° 08' 45" to 103° 23' 45"E.

Date and History of Establishment

  • 1963: Wolong Giant Panda Nature Reserve and Labahe Provincial Nature Reserve established; Other reserves established within the nominated area:
  • 1975: Wolong and Fengtongzhai designated National Nature Reserves;
  • 1979: Wolong designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve;
  • 1982: Mt. Qingcheng - Dujiangyan National Park and Mt. Jiguan-Jiulonggou Provincial Park established;
  • 1989: Mt. Tientai Provincial Park set up (in proposed transitional area);
  • 1993: Heishuihe Provincial Nature Reserve set up;
  • 1994: Mt. Siguniang and Mt. Xilingxueshan National Parks established; 1995: Mt. Jiajin and Miyaluo Provincial Parks and Jintang - Kongyu Provincial Nature Reserve set up;
  • 1996: Mt. Siguniang National Nature Reserve established;
  • 1999: Mt. Lingjiu - Mt. Daxuefeng Provincial Park set up (in proposed buffer area);
  • 2000: Mt. Erlang Provincial Park and Caopo Provincial Nature Reserve set up;
  • 2000: Mount Qingcheng and Dujiangyan Irrigation System designated a cultural World Heritage Site.

Area

924,500 ha. This is a strictly protected core area. A buffer area of 527,100 ha forms a surrounding transitional multiple-use zone within which farming and some other activities are permitted.

Land Tenure

The state; within 12 counties in the jurisdictions of Chengdu and Ya'an cities and the Aba and Ganzi Autonomous Prefectures. Administered variously by the National and Sichuan Bureaux of Forestry, Environmental Protection and Construction and by supporting institutions.

Altitude

580 meters (m) (Dujiangyan) to 6250 m (Mt. Siguniang, Qionglai Mountains).

Physical Features

The site is in the mountainous western border of the Sichuan basin and the landscape is scenically dramatic. The mountains lie on the divide between the east China and Qinghai-Tibetan tectonic sub-plates. Geologically the area was under the Tethys Sea until late Triassic times, was raised, eroded, then raised again in the late Tertiary becoming part of the eastern edge of the present Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. The various Palaeozoic strata of the region are intensely folded and faulted parallel to the main northeast to southwest trending ranges. There is a preponderance of limestone formations. The high ranges of the Qionglai Mountains are predominantly Triassic siltstone, limestone and slate, and the western half of the Jiajin Mountains, their continuation to the south, are mainly Permo-carboniferous rock. On the east side of the mountains the land is heavily ridged, forested and deeply dissected by the valleys and gorges of perennial rivers falling from the glaciated snow-covered peaks and alpine meadows. There are fourteen glaciers, and a high region of U-shaped valleys, horns, cirques and arêtes. Between the high ridges is the panda habitat of deep forested valleys, raised terraces and gentler slopes. The soils vary from valley alluvium through various types of mountain soil to lithosols on the high mountains.

Climate

The climate ranges with altitude between cool-temperate to sub-tropical. Slopes facing the southwest monsoon can receive 800 to 950 millimeters (mm) of rain in summer, and, blocked by the Qionglai mountains, clouds settle in the valleys where the year-round humidity is 85%. Half of every summer month is rainy and the rest often fog-covered. It is this cloudy moisture trap which extends even to the alpine zone which creates the conditions for the exceptional biological richness of these mountains. Between October and April snow falls on higher ground (573 mm at 2,520 elevation in 1981). But in the rain shadow west of the ranges, the land is dry. The average summer and winter temperatures are 18.1°C and -1.1°C with average maxima of 19°C and -12°C. The main panda habitat lies between 1600 and 3500 m where the average annual temperatures range between 0.8°C and 13°C, with a rainfall of between 800 - 1500 mm. Temperatures fall with elevation through temperate zones to permanent ice. The weather in spring and fall is very changeable.

Vegetation

This area lying between the subtropical flora of East Asia and the temperate flora of the Himalayan-Qinghai plateau, is the botanically richest site of any temperate region, classified among the world's top 25 biodiversity hotspots by Conservation International and as one of WWF's Global 200 ecoregions. The total flora of the nominated area is between 5000 and 6000 species in over 1000 genera, over 4,000 of which are flowering plants, 67 of which are nationally protected. 50% of its genera are endemic to China which constitute 20% of China's total. There are 794 angiosperm genera, 77% of China's total angiosperm species, 24 gymnosperm, 70 pteridophyte and 102 bryophyte genera. Many species are relicts, isolated during the extreme climatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene in the moisture trap created by the high plateau to the west. The steep topography also accommodated temperature changes by permitting small lateral shifts in plant [[population]s]. It is probable that there are many species yet to be discovered.

There is a range of vegetation zones from subtropical forest to tundra found in no other protected area in China except for Mt. Gongga in the Daxueshan 50 km south-southwest, where there are no pandas. These include six vegetation zones related to altitude: from 600-800 m, subtropical mountain evergreen broadleaved forest; 1800-2400 m, the same mixed with deciduous broadleaved forest; 2400-2800m, warm temperate coniferous and deciduous broadleaved mixed forest - the umbrella bamboo Fargesia robusta and Yushania chungii draw pandas here from autumn to spring; 2,800-3,800 m, cool temperate to sub-alpine coniferous forest - the arrow bamboo Bashania faberi attracts the pandas here during the summer; 3800-4400 m, sub-alpine scrub and meadows; 4400-4500 m, alpine screes and sparse growth; >5000 m, permanent ice and snow.

The site was never totally glaciated during the recent Ice Age, from which we are emerging. It is now is within the West Sichuan-Northwest Yunnan center of floral endemism. Over 50 relict monotypic genera have survived from the Mesozoic era, 20% of China's total, among them the dove tree Davidia involucrata, Katsura tree Cercidophyllum japonicum, Chinese money maple Dipteronia sinensis, dawn redwood Metasequoia glyptostroboides (CR), Chinese bretschneidera Bretschneidera sinensis (EN), gingko Gingko biloba (EN), Tetracentron sinensis and one-eyed grass Kingdonia uniflora. 50 genera are endemic to China (20% of its total) and 67 plant species are nationally protected. Globally endangered (IUCN Red List Criteria for Endangered) plants on site include Chinese hazelnut Corylus chinensis (EN), silverleaf cassia Cinnamomum mairei (EN), Sargent magnolia Magnolia sargentiana (EN), Wilson magnolia M. wilsonii (EN), palmate neocheiropteris Neocheiropteris palmatopedata (EN), bigcone spruce Picea neoveitchii (EN), and Chinese fern Sinopteris grevilleoides (EN). The area is also the center for many groups of plants: roses, peonies, magnolias, maples, primroses, bamboos and rhododendrons of which there are more than 100 species. Of the site's 22 orchid species, nearly 40% are endemic. And the exceptionally humid alpine zone has the richest alpine flora in the world. Many western ornamental garden plants were discovered in these mountains. The site is a major source and gene pool for hundreds of traditional medicinal plants, many now rare and endangered.

Fauna

300px-Giantpanda.jpg The Giant Panda, a uniquely herbivorous, Class I protected endemic and rare species. Source: Smithsonian National Zoological Park

The site is the type locality and chief habitat of the distinctive WWF emblem, the giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca (CR) which is classed as a Class I protected animal and a 'National Treasure' by the Chinese government. The species is an endemic rare palaeotropic Tertiary relict of the Carnivora unique in being herbivorous. Originally a tropical species fairly widespread in China, it has become a non-hibernating inhabitant of the cool-temperate belt of China stretching north from south-central Sichuan to southern Gansu and Shaanxi. Its preferred habitat is concentrated between 2200 m to 3200 m and 400 m to 600 m above and below this level. It is dependent for food on a few species of bamboo which die after flowering, necessitating the animal's freedom to move in search of other sources of food, a requirement constantly threatened by agricultural invasion and fragmentation of its forest habitat. Green corridors are also necessary to avert inbreeding. The nominated area has the largest remaining, least fragmented and widest range of habitats suited to the panda, and supports about 500 animals, 30% of the wild population of 1,600. During the last 25 years this population may have been stable, only appearing to increase recently as a result of improved surveying techniques. Over half the pandas captured between 1936 and 1997 came from the nominated site and during the last 60 years the world's zoos have received 148 specimens as well as other rare animals from the area. The main centers of giant panda population in the Qionglai Mountains are Wolong Reserve in Wenchuan county in the northeast, Fengtongzhai Reserve in Baoxing county in the southeast and in Mt. Jiajin Provincial Park in the Jiajin Mountains of the southwest. However, pandas are conserved in nearly 40 smaller reserves in China.

The site does not have exceptional concentrations of wildlife, but its diversity is enormous, and there are many endemic and threatened species, Palaearctic and Oriental. This is also in part because the mountains enable vertical migration with changes in the weather. There are 542 species of vertebratesand 1700 species of insects (not yet completely known). These include 109 species of mammal in 25 families which are 20.5% of all Chinese mammals. There are 365 bird species in 45 families, 300 of which breed locally, 32 reptiles in 9 families, 22 amphibians in 8 families and 14 fish from five families. (The last total may be an underestimate). The butterfly fauna is immensely rich with 731 species of Lepidoptera. Globally endangered (IUCN Red List Criteria for Endangered) mammals, apart from the giant panda, are the red panda Ailurus fulgens (EN), the snow and cloud leopards Panthera uncia (EN) and Neofelis nebulosa (VU), the golden monkey Rhinopithecus roxellana (VU), Asiatic wild dog Cuon alpinus (VU), Asiatic black bear Selenarctos thibetanus (VU), whitelipped deer Cervus albirostris (VU), serow Capricornus sumatraensis (VU), goral Naemorhedus goral (VU) and argali sheep Ovis ammon (VU).

The area is a center of endemism for several species of birds, the especially the pheasants of which 15 species are known on the site. Endangered birds include the cinereous vulture Aegypius monachus (VU), whitetailed sea-eagle Haliaeetus albicilla VU), the Chinese monal pheasant Lophophorus lhuysii (VU), white-eared pheasant Crossoptilon crossoptilon (VU) and Tibetan eared pheasant Crossoptilon harmani. The blacknecked crane Grus nigricollis (VU) is seen on migration. 86 animals are under state protection which in addition to the above include Chinese stump-tailed macaque Macaca thibetana, takin Budorcus taxicolor, bearded vulture Gypaetus barbatus, Chinese hazel-grouse Tetrastes sewerzowi, pheasant grouse Tetraophasis obscurus, black stork Ciconia nigra, Pallas's sea-eagle Haliaeetus leucoryphus and golden eagle Aquila chrysaetos. The Sichuan wood owl Strix davidi is also present (D.Shepherd in litt, 2005). Many animals are endemic to the region, and one Triassic relict water beetle, Amphizoa davidi, found in 1870, which was lost sight of, was rediscovered in 1995.

Cultural Heritage

Wolongfarmchinagroup2-443.jpg Farmstead within the Wolong Preserve. @ C.Michael Hogan Records of the Giant panda are dated back 2500 years, and a Han emperor once set up a breeding house. The temples of Mount Qingcheng, sacred to the Tibetans, where Taoism is held to have been founded and the 2200-year old Dujiangyan irrigation system near the northern entrance to the site were made a cultural World Heritage Site in 2000. To the south in Baoxing are early Han buildings and the 19th century Franco-Qing mission station at Dengchigou, where Père David was based.

Local Human Population

The population of 41 small towns and many agricultural villages within the buffer zone, totals 21,320 of which 1,020 (260 households) live in the core area and 4,900 in the Wolong Biosphere Reserve. In the western Autonomous prefectures of Aba and Ganzi, the site includes villages of the Qiang and Tibetan cultures where, unlike the Han majority, the people have not been subject to restrictive population policies. The Tibetan town of Yaoji (Qiaoji) on the Donghe river in the middle of the site is the center of an area of some 2000 people. Now defunct mines and factories used to support many small settlements throughout the site. There are active roadway and other construction projects within the Wolong Preserve that are contributing to ongoing water pollution of the surface streams that run through the Preserve.

Visitors and Visitor Facilities

Pandaschinagroup2-409.jpg Juvenile Giant Pandas at the Wolong Research Center. @ C.Michael Hogan Tourism, except to Mt.Qingcheng, is fairly new to the area and is growing fast as a source of income. Records from 2000 give visitation as 640,000, 400,000 being to the National Park and World Heritage Site of Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System. Facilities include nine travel agencies, 15 bus shuttles, 12 parking lots, 46 group hostels and canteens, 12 hotels (2-star and over), 40 shops, two reception and interpretation centers, 20 information stations, 8 rescue centers, 13 first-aid stations, 268 signs for complaints, 164 guides and 250 safety and rescue personnel. The Wolong Tourism Development Plan has been drawn up in detail for the valleys of the Wolong-Gengda area in the northeast where there are many sites for viewing pandas. Facilities will include hotels with a total of over 7000 beds, a small conference center, reception center, ecological museum and education stations, breeding centers, an ecological farm, observation stations, camps and shelters. Riding, rafting, rock climbing and bungee-jumping will be offered. 21,900 daily visitors are anticipated, supporting direct employment of 1500 to 2000 people and indirect employment for 4500 to 6000.

Scientific Research and Facilities

The area is one of the world's richest in plant and animal species, 32 mammals, 43 birds, 7 fish and 110 higher plants having been discovered there. Many are relicts of the Tertiary flora and fauna isolated when the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau rose from the Tethys Sea of central China. The giant panda was first discovered to western science in 1869 by the missionary naturalist, Père David on his one visit through western Sichuan, along with several of the 52 species of rhododendrons which he was the first to discover. The early 20th century collector E. Wilson sent many tons of seeds subsequently propagated in the west. And during the second half of the century, eminent and local Chinese scientists have studied the area continually, initially focusing on the giant panda, now widening out to an ecosystems approach.

Baseline information surveys of pandas and other resources carried out by the National Academy of Sciences, the Forestry Department and the Sichuan Provincial government preceded the establishment of the seven nature reserves and nine scenic parks within the site. Following the mass bamboo flowerings and subsequent die-backs in the 1970s and 1980s, surveys by Conservation International in 1974-77 and 1986-88 systematically swept every local valley for pandas. In 1978, with WWF help, the Wuyipeng Giant Panda Research and Protection Centre was established within panda habitat, at the 2,400 m level, and studies there of the panda and mountain ecosystems have been continuous since 1981. A third national panda survey was partly funded by the WWF in the late 1990s. The successful Wolong Breeding Centre for pandas at Hetaoping was set up in 1983 where, between 1986 and 2000, 46 cubs were born, a major source for the world's zoos. The Wolong Nature Reserve preserves specimens of 225 birds, 56 mammals, 17 amphibians and reptiles, 700 insects and 2,170 plants. On giant pandas alone 10 books and 1,300 monographs and reports have been written.

Conservation Value

The forested mountains on the western edge of the Sichuan basin contain the world's largest population of giant pandas, the emblem of the WWF, and, with 4,000 species of flowering plants and much relict and endangered (IUCN Red List Criteria for Endangered) flora and fauna, is botanically the richest of any temperate region site. The sites lie within a Conservation International-designated Conservation Hotspot, a WWF/IUCN Centre of Plant Diversity, contains two Endemic Bird Areas, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Cultural Site.

Conservation Management

Each component Park and Reserve will remain under its existing administration: the National and Provincial Bureaux of Construction, Forestry Bureaux and Environmental Protection. A Sichuan World Heritage Management Committee is to coordinate these various bodies with the local governments and departments of planning. Its executive staff will come under the Sichuan Construction Department and it will also be advised by a Scientific Committee. The management of the site will follow the example of the 2002 comprehensive Masterplan, incorporating and revising all the present park and reserve master plans and regulations. In the long term the site is seen as part of a serial nomination to cover six western Sichuan mountain ranges. Management experience can be drawn from the Wolong Nature Reserve, established in 1963, and from the two other national and four provincial nature reserves, three national and six provincial scenic parks established in the site area since 1975 to protect the rare animals and scenery. The boundary of the core site largely coincides with the existing reserve boundaries.

The aims of this plan are protection of the panda and other rare species, the protection of biodiversity and the watershed forests, the scenery and the cultural heritage; also to promote sustainable development such as ecotourism, to minimize negative environmental impacts and to increase public awareness and participation in conservation. The site will be zoned and a large transitional area will be established in the downstream valleys on the east side of the site, to be administered by the provincial authorities. As well as protecting the giant panda, the heart of whose habitat defines the site's core area, and the great wealth of other species, protection of these [[forest]s] is essential to help protect the water and electricity supplies, water levels, and the dependent agriculture of hundreds of millions of people living downstream. The development of tourism will be strictly controlled, with no mass tourism allowed in the core zone. Within the core zone logging is no longer permitted, farmland will be left to return to the wild, polluting industries are being closed down. Towns, villages, farms, major infrastructures, dams, mining, mass tourism sites are excluded from the site; hunting and collecting plants except for research will be prohibited. Existing inhabitants will be encouraged to move into the buffer zone. There, agricultural expansion will be prohibited, farmland on slopes will be abandoned to bamboo planted for panda; the infrastructure will be restricted and industries gradually closed down.

As these measures will adversely affect the already poor local communities who have been largely dependent on logging, their needs will be studied and financial and technical assistance considered in order to avert conflict with the program of conservation. Further studies will research panda habitats, their flora and fauna, and their breeding and release into the wild. A thorough ecological monitoring (Environmental monitoring and assessment) network and database will be constructed based on remote sensing and analysed by a multidisciplinary team. Monitoring of pandas and other rare animals, bamboos and vegetation will continue, and monitoring will start of mountain ecosystems and little-studied taxa, human socio-economic conditions and impacts, tourism, pollution and the progress of action programs. A management training center will also be set up focusing on the application of GIS methods to management.

Management Constraints

250px-Arrowbamboo.jpg Arrow bamboo, the principal food source for the giant pandas. (Source: Smithsonian National Zoological Park)

The pressure from the growing population, especially among minority groups where large families are the norm, is diminishing and fragmenting the forest through which the pandas must be free to move to avoid starvation when their principal food source dies. This occurred in the early 1980s with the arrow bamboo when many pandas died. Habitat links are favored over the introduction of non-synchronized bamboos. Increased population and access also increases the likelihood of poaching. However, poachers of pandas have been executed, which is discouraging interest in this lucrative trade though accidental trap catches continue. Panda captures for sale are to be replaced by animals from the breeding stations. The alpine meadows are much grazed by yaks and cattle which replace blue sheep Psuedois nayaur in keeping the meadows open, but overgrazing has to be limited. Hardship to local people caused by the prohibition of logging, and restrictions on the collection of firewood and medicinal plants could be countered by giving them a part in the development of ecotourism as guides to animal, bird and butterfly tours and in mountaineering, by the cultivation of medicinal and ornamental plants and by encouraging crafts such as marble panda carvings for tourists. 176 mine sites and 25 small to medium-sized hydroelectricity projects within the site have already been closed down. Pollution by quarries and small industries is to be limited, as is the introduction of exotic plants. There is some risk of damage from natural disasters such as occasional earthquakes and fires and more frequently, from debris flows, landslides and floods.

Three major developments are proposed for the near future, for which environmental impact (Environmental Impact Assessment) evaluations have been prepared to anticipate and mitigate their effects on the area: the Wolong ecotourism development, a 4 km2 dam on the site of the old Tibetan town of Yaoji with a downstream hydroelectric plant at Fengtongzhai fed by an underground pipe, and 147 km of upgraded road within the site and buffer zone between Dujiangyan and Xiaojing via the Wolong valley and a tunnel under the Balengshan pass. This will become a major link to west Sichuan and Tibet. The ecotourism plan will resettle 5,000 people over the next 20 years, and offer 1000 jobs in return, with training in tourism and forest protection. The dam and downstream work will displace 2299 people, most to be resettled nearby, and change the stream flow. The very considerable effects of pollution, deforestation, erosion and waste disposal will be taken into account and compensation of RMB 2,000,000 will be paid to the reserve. The impacts of tourism will grow and will be monitored.

Comparison with Similar Sites

The site is in basically a temperate climatic area, though rising from subtropical to alpine zones. Its altitudinal range is 5670 m. A comparable range exists in the Three Rivers World Heritage site in Yunnan (5980 m) and to a lesser degree, in Mount Kinabalu in Sabah (3943 m) which also rise from the subtropical to alpine. A comparison of their flora, bird and mammal species, including an African site in Mount Kilimanjaro (4065 m), the purely temperate sites of Yellowstone (1852 m), Yosemite (3327m) and the Great Smoky Mountains (1966 m) is given:

World Heritage Site

Flora (spp.)

Birds (spp.)

Mammals (spp.)

Area (ha)

Sichuan Site

4,000+

365 (12*)

132

924,500

Three Rivers

6,000

417 (22*)

173

1,680,000

Mt. Kinabalu

5-6,000

326

112

75,337

Mt. Kilimanjaro

2,500

179

140

18,318

Great Smoky Mountains

1,500

200+

50+

209,000

Yosemite

1,400+

230

74

308,283

Yellowstone

1,050

290

58

899,200

  • = endemics

The Three Rivers serial site is almost twice the size but is otherwise rather comparable, not having twice the number of species. There is a much greater concentration of diversity on Kinabalu, a site of one twelfth the area, but its iconic mammal, the orang-utan, is more widely dispersed in Indonesia than the panda is in central China.

Staff

The existing conservation staff numbers 501, (mostly in the Wolong National Park) including 40 senior professionals, 182 intermediate professionals and 190 junior technicians. Senior graduate professionals and advanced training will be introduced to ensure that the rest of the site is managed as effectively as Wolong. There are also 164 tourist guides and 250 safety and rescue personnel.

Budget

Funding from 1963 to 2000 within the nominated area was RMB 320,000,000 (US$38,325,00 @ 2000 rates), comprised of 180,000,000 from the State, RMB 85,000,000 in raised funds and RMB 55,000,000 from Sichuan Province, Aba Autonomous Prefecture, Ya'an and Chengdu cities and Ganzi Autonomous Prefecture. From 2003 to 2010 the projected budget is RMB 1,956,000,000 (US$233,500,00). RMB 2,000,000 compensation will also be paid for the effects of the dam. RMB4,560,000,000 (US$570,000) is expected in increased tourism revenues over the next ten years.

IUCN Management Category

  • V – Wolong National Nature Reserve
  • V – Fengtongzhai National Nature Reserve
  • V – Mt. Siguniang National Nature Reserve
  • II – Mt. Qingcheng - Dujiangyan National Park
  • II – Mt. Siguniang National Park
  • II – Mt. Xilingxueshan National Park
  • Unassigned – Labahe Provincial Nature Reserve
  • Unassigned – Heishuihe Provincial Nature Reserve
  • Unassigned – Jintang - Kongyu Provincial Nature Reserve
  • Unassigned – Caopo Provincial Nature Reserve
  • Unassigned – Mt. Jiguan - Jiulonggou Provincial Park
  • Unassigned – Mt. Jiajin Provincial Park
  • Unassigned – Miyaluo Provincial Park
  • Unassigned – Mt. Lingjiu - Mt.Daxuefeng Provincial Park

Further Reading

A principal source for the above information was the original nomination for World Heritage status.

  • Ministry of Construction (2002). World Heritage Convention Natural Heritage: China. Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuary, Wolong, Mt. Siguniang & Jiajin Mountains. A bibliography of 117 references, 43 in english
  • Ministry of Construction (2005). Report to IUCN on Nomination . . . Additional Information and Boundary Revisions. Maps of proposed dam and road developments.
Disclaimer: This article contains information that was originally published by the United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Topic editors and authors for the Encyclopedia of Earth have edited its content and added new information. The use of information from the United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) should not be construed as support for or endorsement by that organization for any new information added by EoE personnel, or for any editing of the original content.


Citation

United Nations Environment Programme, C. Michael Hogan (2011). The Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries, China. ed. Mark McGinley. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and Environment. Washington DC. Retrieved from http://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/The_Sichuan_Giant_Panda_Sanctuaries,_China