Post #149798 by christiki295 on Mon, Mar 28, 2005 7:01 PM

Good point, Mr. Smiley.

However, is all bamboo from China or is any harvested more locally?

I'm also afraid the panda problem is larger than tiki bars, but the development of China, deforstation and the need for increased agricultuaral lands.

Two of the primary Panda restoration projects are wildlife corridors, to link bamboo feeding areas and a 1998 law which attempts to prevent logging.

In 2002, the Chinese government nearly doubled the protected areas for giant pandas in the Qinling mountain range by creating five new panda reserves and committing to create five new wildlife corridors in the area. This initiative increased protected areas for pandas in Qinling from 455,000 acres to more than 825,000 acres, in addition to the five corridors.

Wildlife corridors are a key tool to save giant pandas. Because human land use has restricted many populations of pandas to less than 50 individuals, it is essential to re-link habitat if the threat of inbreeding is to be reduced. By creating forested pathways that connect patches of habitat where pandas live, we enable the animals to migrate from one area to another - crucial for meeting mates and finding fresh food supplies. Where there are no corridors, pandas are cut off from one another by highways, farms, cities and other human development. The corridors are expected to be complete by 2005.

Additionally, a new forest protection program launched by the government in 1998 includes a widespread ban on logging by which virtually all panda habitat is now off limits to timber harvesting. A related measure calls for reforesting former farmland on steep slopes.

http://worldwildlife.org/pandas/results/results1.cfm