The Ministry of Forestry of the Peoples Republic of China and World Wide Fund for Nature have cooperated since 1980 in an effort to conserve the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in the wild in China. This conservation project has 4 major components: biological research, population survey, management planning, and training. This paper first evaluates the focus and results of the biological research using a framework based on population viability analysis and life-history theory. Demographic parameters and the causes of their variation are still poorly understood. A number of habitat-related ecological processes are relatively well understood. Second the paper assesses the dominant role of biological research in the project. The principal threats to panda population viability are anthropogenic: habitat loss and poaching. However, this conservation project has not sufficiently addressed the socio-economic conditions and behaviors that cause and influence the threats to panda persistence. Incorporating social scientists along with biological scientists in a team of investigators at the inception of a conservation project should make the project more successful.
- Volume 9
- Issue
- Pages 23-33
- Publication Date 1 January 1994
- DOI 10.2307/3872681
- File Size 425.85 KB
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