News Blip:
China Plans A Panda National Park To Preserve The Species
The Sichuan Province Government In China Has Secured Funding Matching $1.58 Billion In Order To Build The Giant Panda National Park That Is Expected by 2020.
Editor's Note: This news item was retrieved through VOA News & Fast Company's website.
With RVing on the rise in China, visiting campers will have an new destination to visit as early as 2020. The Chinese government has announced the development of a new national park devoted to the preservation of the giant panda species that will span areas in three provinces, Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan, where pandas are currently isolated on six mountains. The new park will connect 67 separate reserves into a park the size of the state of Massachusetts, or three Yellowstones. The goal is to help China's iconic animals mingle and enrich their gene pool, a process that has been successfully pursued at zoos around the world, including the sonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC. An estimated 1,800 giant pandas remain in the wild today.
Voice of America (VOA) reports that the Bank of China has promised 10 billion yuan, or $1.5 billion, to set up the protective area. In addition to park infrastructure, the funds will go to developing an ecotourism industry with new jobs for people living in the area. VOA also reports that China is pursuing an aggressive environmental protection policy with the country’s environment ministry recently approving plans by 15 provinces and regions to establish “red lines” to keep large areas wetlands, forests, national parks and protected nature zones off-limits to economic development.
Click here for the full articles by VOA and Fast Company.