The return of China’s wild panda

Bamboo is luring the pandas back to China's Sichuan province, its
spiritual home. (Thomas Kokta/Getty)
When it comes to picking national animals, there is no doubt that
China has struck gold in choosing theloveable, ink-eyed, roly poly
panda, and the Sichuan province, in the country's southwest, is
thepanda's spiritual home. Shops in Chengdu, the capital of the
province, andon the outskirts of Jiuzhai Valley (China's most popular
national park, attracting some 10,000 visitors a day) are packed with
panda paraphernalia, from furry-eared hats to huge panda boxing
gloves.
*. Related slidehow: The falls and hues of Jiuzhaigou
There is only one thing missing -- the pandas.
Uncovered by the Chinese government in the late 1960s and populated
only by a handful of tiny Tibetan villages (the local name,
Jiuzhaigou, means "Nine Villages Valley"), the remote Jiuzhai Valley
was threatened by logging until 1982 when it becameone of the
country's first protected national parks to preserve the region's
staggering beauty. Midnight blue lakes reflect the huge forested
canyons in their flawless waters, crystalline waterfalls flow from the
mountain tops and exquisite orchids and rhododendrons weave threads of
colour through the greenery of the forest floor. Most importantly,
these mountains were covered in bamboo, making Jiuzhai a haven
forpandas.
But bamboo is something of a tragic plant -- it only flower once in
its lifetime -- and the Jiuzhai Valley bamboo flowered and died in the
1980s, depriving pandas of the food that makes up 99% of their diet.
The animals were forced to leave the park and move into the even more
remote Min Shan mountains in search of sustenance.
Since then, the only way tosee a panda in the Sichuan province has
been to visit the Chengdu Panda Reserve -- one of the most important
international centres for panda research -- which provides a fantastic
opportunity to get up close to the animalsand watch them chompingdown
on bamboo and playfighting. The chance of seeing pandas in the wild –
always remote, even when the bamboo was at its height -- was thought
to have gone forever.
But slowly and surely, bamboo has started to regrow in Jiuzhai. And in
June 2012, a mountain ranger working for the national park authority
came across evidence of panda feeding sites within the boundary of the
park. Droppings that looked like panda scat were collected and brought
back for testing, and the results confirmed that after a gap of 20
years, pandas have begun their return to the valley.
"If pandas do return here in greater numbers they will be returning to
a well-protected nature reserve with no threat from logging or
poaching,"said Kieran Fitzgerald, a sustainable tourism expertwho has
worked at the park for the past four years. "Even though Jiuzhai
Valley is a popular tourist site, the tourist buses will be far enough
away so as not to affect these reclusive mountain dwellers."
The chances of seeing a panda in the wild at Jiuzhai remain very slim
– but there is now at least a chance. "Pandas are very shy, reclusive
animals," said Fitzgerald. "If in the future if they do return in
better numbers, it would still be extremely hard for tourists to see
them in the wild. But when the time comes, there could be some viewing
opportunitythrough long range telescopes or binoculars – who knows?"
And in any case, there are plenty of other reasons to go to Jiuzhai.
Visiting someof the park's Tibetan villages is a fantastic way to
learn about the region'sTibetan culture. Everywhere you look, linesof
colourful prayer flags flutter in the breeze and prayer wheels spin as
the water flows beneath them.
The local Tibetan people are beginning to adapt to the tourism that
the natural beauty of their home has inspired. The road leading to the
entrance of the park is lined with the high risechain hotels that are
popular with many Chinese tourists, but there are also signs that an
alternative, more sustainable approach to tourism is on the rise.