The Sichaun province government has secured %1.58 billion in funding during the next 5 years for a planned Giant Panda National Park.

The park will be three times the size of the US Yellowstone National Park, so it will be enormous – 10,476 square miles in all.

The park will protect wild pandas living across the Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces.  The environment ministry said it had agreed to plans by 15 provinces and regions to draw up red lines to keep large areas of land off limits to economic development.   These large areas include wetlands, forests, national parks and protected nature zones. 

Over 80% of wild pandas live in Sichuan, and the rest in Shaanxi and Gansu.  The park plans will link up the pandas who are isolated in these areas and encourage them to breed.  Pandas are terribly slow at reproducing and there are several breeding centres in China to help with panda conservation.

Although the number of wild pandas have increased in recent years, the continued increase in numbers depends on having the right habitat available to pandas to breed so the announcement of the Giant Panda National Park is a step in the right direction to ensuring they have the right environment in which to thrive. 

Pandas International is a US based charity working to help with panda conservation.  Visit Pandas International here.