Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity

[ ] 41 Giant pandas The GEF began working to conserve Giant Pandas in China in 1995. Today, national surveys indicate that the decline in the panda population has stopped, and in fact their number has begun to rise. A recent survey estimated the range-wide population as 1,864 adult Giant Pandas, and that at least one distinct population, in the Minshan Mountains, includes more than 400 mature individuals. Forest protection and reforestation in China has increased forest cover over the past decade, leading to an 11.8 per cent increase in forest occupied by pandas and a 6.3 per cent increase in suitable forests that are not yet occupied. GEF’s efforts have contributed significantly to enhancing the habitats of the panda. Two projects, the Nature Reserve Management Project and the Sustainable Forest Development Project, both conducted with the Government of China and the World Bank, introduced science-based monitoring, results-based management planning, and participatory approaches with adjacent communities, and provided capacity building for staff from the national nature reserve management office in Beijing to a dozen national-level nature reserves, several of which subsequently became models for the country. Shutterstock