Within the Forests of the Upper Yangtze, WWF has identified the Minshan mountain range in Sichuan and Gansu as a particularly outstanding landscape for unique and endangered wildlife, with important populations of giant panda, clouded leopard, golden monkey and the world's richest variety of pheasants. The Minshan covers parts of sixteen counties and 19 nature reserves and is populated by close to one million Han, Tibetan, Qiang, and Baima people.

In 1998, massive flooding devastated a large area along the Yangtze River downstream from Sichuan. In response to this disaster the Chinese government declared a ban on logging in order to protect the river's upper watershed forests. The logging ban effectively eliminated what had been the major threat to pandas and their habitat: commercial logging. At the same time, it brought new challenges. With no more revenue from taxes on logging, local government has fewer funds to support conservation.

In response, WWF together with a wide range of stakeholders has developed and is implementing an approach to conservation that balances the ecological, social, and economic needs of the landscape. This project is demonstrating community-based conservation of the giant panda and its habitat in both protected areas and the communities in Pingwu county and seeks to scale up these experiences to other areas in the Minshan landscape.

Objective

By 2012, giant panda populations and their habitats increased by at least 10% in Minshan through the mitigation of key threats to pandas and their habitat and the implementation of model conservation approaches by WWF and its partners. At the same time, through effective project demonstration and magnification, panda populations and their habitats elsewhere maintained at least stable.

Current Status

This project is a new initiative that is the continuum of the WWF Pingwu Integrated Conservation and Development Project (1997-2002) in Sichuan province.

Achievements of WWF's Pingwu ICDP project in improving conservation in Pingwu include building the capacity of Wanglang Nature Reserve staff, developing ecotourism, and developing alternative livelihoods for local communities. As a result, Wanglang is becoming a leading nature reserve in terms of ecotourism development, ecological monitoring and patrolling, anti-poaching and participatory management. The Conservation Division of the Sichuan Forestry Department and Mianyang Municipality advocate Wanglang as a model nature reserve.

The experiences of the Pingwu ICDP project are to be magnified to enhance the conservation of the whole Minshan landscape. Pingwu ICDP will also be coordinated with WWF's Minshan Initiative project (see WWF China's forest programme) in order to effectively promote protection of the Minshan landscape.

Crucial panda corridors in the Minshan Panda Nature Reserve network will be improved by working with the GEF and EU Natural Forest Protection Project and through China's NFPP (logging ban policy). The Panda Conservation in the Minshan Landscape project also seeks to establish a platform of cooperative research and protection action, technical exchange, human resources and information sharing in order to effectively protect the Minshan panda habitat.

Major achievements in the transition period (July 2002-December 2002)

Wanglang Nature Reserve upgraded to national level nature reserve:
In July 2002, Wanglang was upgraded from a provincial level nature reserve to a national level nature reserve. It was also awarded the status of 'Advanced Nature Reserve' by the State Forestry Administration. This is the second time for Wanglang to win this award since ICDP’s implementation in Pingwu. Wanglang's newly elevated status will result in increased government funding for Wanglang in order to enhance conservation in Wanglang Nature Reserve. In addition, the impact of the Pingwu ICDP project will be broadened through more regular contact with SFA officials, who will promote other nature reserve staff to visit Wanglang to learn about staff's participatory management experiences and ecotourism management, as well as the development of community alternative livelihoods and its link to conservation.

Expanding Xuebaoding nature reserve:
In order to magnify the experiences of Pingwu ICDP, nature reserve network building is necessary. Si’er reserve is located in Si’er and Huya Townships of Pingwu County, Sichuan Province. It was established in 1993 with an area of 29,790 ha. tTo protect the giant panda and its habitat. In July 2001, the Pingwu Government agreed to enlarge the reserve to 63,615 ha. The enlargement of the reserve was formally approved by the Sichuan Provincial Government this year and it has been renamed as Xuebaoding Nature Reserve.

Xuebaoding Nature Reserve is one of three nature reserves in Pingwu. The elevation of the reserve ranges from 4,828 to 1,600 meters. It is dominated by the natural forest ecosystem in which over 50 species of national protected animals can be found, including the giant panda, golden monkey and takin. Its location is vital as a panda corridor. The expansion of Xuebaoding has increased its area from 29,000 hectares to 63,615 hectares. This is a significant achievement in that a critical panda corridorhabitat has now come under protection. WWF Pingwu ICDP project also supported a baseline data investigation of socio-economic and biological data in Xuebaoding. The information will be used to develop a masterplan to be implemented in Xuebaoding nature reserve so as to guide Xuebaoding nature reserve management.

Pingwu Tourism Festival:
In order to promote the development of tourism in Pingwu County, improve conservation awareness and facilitate cooperation amongst stakeholders, WWF and the Sichuan Provincial government jointly organized the Pingwu Tourism Festival from September 15-18, 2002. About 10,000 people including delegations from over 10 ethnic groups, domestic and international visitors, and special guests participated it he festival. During the festival, organizers discussed the development of ecotourism with specialists from various fields. Achievements of Pingwu ICDP were also introduced to visitors through displays and publications. In addition, community-based ecotourism was introduced to relevant organizations, including the Sichuan Tourism Management Bureau, Ethnic Minorities Management Bureau. Since the festival, tourism revenue in Wanglang has risen compared with the same period of time last year. Revenue generated by tourism in Wanglang was 250,000RMB in 2001 and 460,000RMB in 2002.

Monitoring and patrolling training:
Pingwu ICDP organized a training workshop from August 8-12, 2002 in Wanglang Nature Reserve. The workshop provided a training on animals and trace identification and plant taxonomy given by a famous panda expert, Hu Jinchu from Sichuan Normal University, and two Ecological and Botanic experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 56 nature reserve staff from 20 panda nature reserves attended the workshop. The aim of the workshop was not only to improve the quality of monitoring and patrolling and how to better identify wildlife, but also to enhance information and experience exchanges among panda nature reserves.

Developing and promoting alternative livelihoods:
Bee-keeping is an environmentally friendly alternative livelihood which local communities have a high interest in developing. Constraints include quality of honey and a lack of stable market demands. A diversified marketing channel for honey would promote alternative livelihood development in local Baima communities, who live in a panda corridor area. ICDP staff signed an agreement on Baima honey processing with the Yaohua Food processing company.

Out of 325 households in the Baima township, 295 households are now cultivating organic cabbage commercially. Pingwu ICDP together with the Baima township government have provided training and seedlings for cultivating cabbage commercially. ICDP, the Baima township and farmers shared 1/3 of the cabbage seedling expenditure. After harvesting, the average household earned 1900RMB (gross income) from cabbage cultivation. Furthermore, Pingwu ICDP investigated ways to integrate the project with local government. (Pingwu ICDP currently implements the community development project directly). This move aims to integrate community development for conservation into the local government's development framework.

Monitoring and patrolling guidance training:
With financial support from WWF, the Technical Guide for Biodiversity Monitoring in the Panda Reserves of Sichuan Province was developed by the Sichuan Forestry Department in November 2002. The completion of the guide is the first step to standardizing monitoring and patrolling work in the panda reserves of Sichuan Province. The guide set specific requirements for the monitoring of pandas and other wildlife, major edible bamboo species for the panda, as well as human and community activities in the habitat. Detailed implementation procedures and forms have been developed and the mechanism for management and quality control is also detailed. In early January 2003, the Sichuan Forestry Department organized a training workshop (Jan 9-15, 2003) for panda reserve staff in Sichuan to ensure the implementation of the guide in the field. In 2003, nature reserve began monitoring and patrolling using the guide.

Partners

Sichuan Forestry Department
Pingwu County Government
State Forestry Administration
Wanglang Reserve
Pingwu Forestry Bureau
Xuebaoding Reserve
Chinese Academy of Forestry
Beijing University
Sichuan Forestry Institution