Copyright 2001 BBC
November 16, 2001
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Scientists say they think there could be brighter prospects for China's few remaining wild pandas.

They believe several policy changes by the Chinese government may help the animals.

Without change, they say, the outlook for many panda populations would be dim.

Despite unprecedented work to conserve the species, habitat loss and development pressures continue to squeeze the pandas into smaller and less viable groups.

Writing in Science magazine, the authors say the panda should be a success story "as the world's most widely recognised conservation icon".

It enjoys a network of 33 nature reserves, and a captive breeding programme.

Human pressure

But habitat loss and fragmentation continue to depress its prospects, and China today has only an estimated 1,100 wild pandas, surviving in only a small part of their historic range.

The authors, from WWF and Beijing University, say human land use has restricted the pandas to about 24 populations at the edge of the Tibetan plateau.

In the Wolong nature reserve, they say, the three sub-populations of 30 to 45 pandas each have more than a tenfold chance of extinction by 2100 if they remain isolated from each other.

Most of China's panda populations have fewer than 50 animals, and are therefore in the authors' view too small to be viable in the long term. Error: Unable to read footer file.