DEFORESTATION

Deforestation means animals disappear. At the edges of developed areas, where natural habitats meet human habitats, animals are forced to undergo significant changes to survive and adapt.

TEMPERATE FORESTS IN CHINA

• China's once extensive forests have declined over the centuries as human population increased.

• In south-central China, temperate forests of many types are watered by the five great rivers of Southeast Asia: the Mekong, Irrawaddy, Yellow, Yangtze and Salween. This is botanically the richest temperate region in the world.

HOME OF THE GIANT PANDA

• This temperate region is the home of the Giant Panda.

• Fewer than 1,000 of these black-and-white bears remain in small, scattered populations.

ABOUT THE GIANT PANDA

• The giant panda is a small black and white bear. It has large black fur eye patches, a white head with a black saddle across its back, black fore and hind limbs and black ears. It can weigh up to 275 pounds.

• Giant pandas are found in mixed evergreen temperate forest, with a bamboo understory, between 3,000 and 10,000 feet altitude.

MORE ABOUTTHE GIANT PANDA

• Giant pandas live almost solely on a diet of bamboo, up to 33 pounds a day, and will very rarely eat other plant matter or scavenge the meat of dead deer.

DEFORESTATION &THE GIANT PANDA

• Pandas are extremely endangered, with little more than 1000 individuals remaining in very fragmented and isolated habitat islands.

• The Panda's main threat to survival is deforestation, the insularization of its remaining habitat and poaching.

DEFORESTATION &THE GIANT PANDA

• As climates warmed and human populations took over much of their habitat, they declined in numbers, and their bamboo forests retreated.

• Between 1974 and 1989, their habitat was halved as a result of logging and settlements, from 20,000 square kilometers to 10,000 square kilometers

DEFORESTATION &THE GIANT PANDA

• Their major reserve, Wolong Nature Reserve, found a dramatic decline in forest cover from 1965 to 1997 as growing numbers of people living in the reserve cut deciduous trees and bamboo for firewood.

• Pandas have starved to death when their bamboo forests were cut or underwent a cyclical die-off. 

DEFORESTATION &THE GIANT PANDA

• Their habitat has decreased so much that they are now at the mercy of local conditions within each reserve.

CONSERVATION STEPS

• The Chinese government recently approved a 10 year plan to enhance existing reserves, build new reserves and create habitat corridors between reserves. This program was developed by World Wildlife Fund and the Ministry of Forestry and is estimated to cost $50 - $100 million.

What can you do to help?

• Teach others about the importance of the environment and how they can help save rainforests.

• Restore damaged ecosystems by planting trees on land where forests have been cut down.

• Encourage people to live in a way that doesn't hurt the environment.

• Establish parks to protect rainforests and wildlife. • Support companies that operate in ways that

minimize damage to the environment.

SOURCES & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

– http://animals.about.com/b/a/2003_08_18.htm

– http://www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org/forest_eurasian_land.php

– http://www.bearden.org/Species%20and%20Programs%20pages/Panda%20page.htm

– http://rainforests.mongabay.com/1001.htm

The End

Marilyn TanPr 3J

June 2007