Northwest China's Gansu to build giant panda national park

By Cao Siqi

Source: Global Times/People’s Daily

Officials from Northwest China's Gansu Province vowed to accelerate its plan to build a giant panda national park to protect pandas and other endangered animals.

According to a Gansu regional government work plan in 2019 obtained by the Global Times, the local government will continue strengthening its anti-pollution campaign and accelerate its plan to build a giant panda national park.

On March 10, 2019, a giant panda walks outside and enjoys the spring in southeastChina’s Anhui Province.

Photo: CFP

The local forestry bureau said it has formed a special team to survey the park's boundary and promised to control human activities in the park.

The team is accelerating the construction of a giant panda rescue center, public education center, and will install video surveillance cameras in the wild and a monitoring system for the panda's habitat. 

Gansu is one of the three natural habitats of giant pandas, with the number of giant pandas reaching 132.

The giant panda habitat covered an area of 188,800 hectares and their potential habitat area could cover 255,300 hectares, involving 21 towns and villages in four counties.

The giant panda national park will be established in Longnan, a city in southeast Gansu that borders Sichuan Province on its south and Shaanxi Province on its east. Around 111 giant pandas are living in the area.

The giant panda national park is part of China's blueprint to construct 10 pilot national parks. Another Qilian Mountains national park, also in Gansu Province, was inaugurated in 2018.

The general plan for the Northeast China tiger and leopard national park was completed, a plan for the three-river source national park was approved, and the proposal for the Hainan tropical rainforest national park has been submitted for approval, the Xinhua News Agency reported in January.