Humans are not the
only species on this planet, what about the animals? Animals can feel things,
just like humans can? Is that not obvious?
Humans are largely
responsible when animals become extinct, endangered or threatened. Humans
destroy spacious habitat, the natural environment of a living thing, when they
fill swamps and marshes, dam rivers and cut down trees to build homes, roads
and other developments. Oil-spills, acid rain and water pollutions have been
devastating for many species of fish and birds.
Many animals are over-hunted because their meat, fur and other parts are
very valuable. When animals or plants arrive into a new habitat from a foreign
place, they sometimes introduce diseases that the native species can’t fight.
These ‘exotic’ species can also prey on the native species.
According to the
history of World Wildlife Fund, ‘in 1961, a limited number of organizations
around the world, such as the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and The Conservation Foundation, were
trying to meet conservation needs, but were desperately short of funds. The first call for broad
support was the Morges Manifesto, signed in 1961 by 16 of the world’s leading
conservationists, including biologist and African wildlife enthusiast Sir
Julian Huxley, IUCN vice president Sir Peter Scott and director-general of the
British Nature Conservancy E. M. Nicholson. The Morges Manifesto stated that while
the expertise to protect the world environment existed, the financial support
to achieve this protection did not. The decision was made to establish World
Wildlife Fund as an international fundraising organization to work in
collaboration with existing conservation groups and bring substantial financial
support to the conservation movement on a worldwide scale.’
World Wildlife
Fund, Inc. (WWF), the U.S appeal, became the second national organization to be
formed in 1961. In its first year, the Board approves five projects totaling
$33,500. Early projects include work with the bald eagle, the Hawaiian sea
bird, the giant grebe of Guatemala, the Tule goose in Canada and the red wolf
in the southern United States. WWF granted $38,000 to the Smithsonian Institution
to study the tiger populations of the Chitwan Sanctuary in Nepal, allowing
scientists to successfully use radio-tracking devices for the first time in
1973. WWF also purchased 37,000 acres adjacent to Kenya’s Lake Nakuru. Nearly
30 bird species depend on the lake, including a million flamingoes for which
the lake is the principle feeding ground. WWF started to focus not only on
species-related conservation projects, but also on protecting habitat by
establishing national parks and nature reserves. With critical support from WWF
and the United Nations Environment Program, the IUCN in 1980 publishes the
ground-breaking World Conservation Strategy, stating that humanity exists as
part of nature and has no future unless nature and natural resources are conserved.
Through these debt-for-nature swaps, WWF will convert portions of national
debts into funding for conservation. In a New York Times editorial in 1984, WWF
vice president Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy sets forth the concept of using Third
World debt reduction to protect the environment. School children across the U.S
respond to WWF’s ‘Pennies for Pandas’ campaign in 1984, donating more than
$50,000 for panda conservation. Nancy Reagan personally delivered the gift to
the Chinese government during a visit to Beijing. 
Central china is a treasure
house of rare and unusual animals that live in the bamboo forest of Sichuan
Province, also known as the Sleeping Dragon. It’s a land of surprises with one
and half meter of water dragons that make their home in the region’s many
rivers. And there are flowers of surpassing beauty in the forests. Many of the
creatures have lives that are shaped by bamboo; non-else than the giant panda.
Bamboo is an immensely useful plant and the Chinese have used it for centuries.
This giant grass has a thousand uses from medicines to building materials.
Every Chinese village has its bamboo grove and for the local people, the hollow
canes are an invaluable resource. Split canes can be woven enabling the village
craftsman to make everything from sun hats to baskets.
But while larger kinds of
bamboo are useful to people, small amount varieties are crucial for many of the
Sleeping Dragon’s wild creatures. Probably the most dependent on bamboo is
China’s most enigmatic animal: the giant panda. The bamboo’s fibrous nature has
molded many of the panda’s features. Its teeth are flattened and its large
cheek muscles provide the grinding power, giving the giant panda its round
appealing face, but giant panda’s short gut, more suitable for digesting meat
can only absorb a tiny bit proportion of the panda’s nutrients.
So these
animals live on a nutritional life aid, only just extracting efficient energy
from the foliage to survive. The bamboo’s creative growth is prodigious; from
small beginnings, it races towards the light and up to 12cm everyday. New
shoots are juicy and high in protein and far too tasty for a giant panda to
ignore. Spring is a good time for a giant panda; this is when the bamboo is at
its most nutritious and they thrive solely on shoots. Their appetite is
enormous, each one eats 12 kgs of shoots a day.
A newborn is about the size of
a stick of butter, but giant pandas can grow up to 150kgs as an adult. The rarest member of the bear family, pandas
have become the universal symbol for conservation. There are only 1,600 left in
the wild. More than 100 years ago, giant panda bears were once hunted for their
beautiful black and white fur coats. Many people would kill for these animals,
and they did. Giant panda bears made it to the endangered species list. These
wonderful animals are facing many obstacles that are getting in the way of
their survival. 99% of their diet consists of bamboo, and when they eat all of
it in one area, they move to another. But with the habitat occupied by humans,
they have nowhere to go, and may die from starvation. China has a population of
more than one billion people. As those people build more cities and farms, the
pandas lose their homes.
China’s breeding program is
finally going strong. With so many new irresistible cubs, Wu Long has become a
tourist attraction, and more success has followed. In the year 2000, Wu Long
broke even its records with eleven new cubs. Wu Long’s success gives us a
certain optimism about the future of giant pandas, but with this comes another
problem. What will we do with the surplus of captive cubs? Their natural
habitat is vanishing. China’s human population puts enormous demands on the
land: farming and logging or clearing the forests where pandas once lived.
Pandas are pushed higher and higher up the mountains into the toughest terrain
where there’s less to eat. To combat this problem, the Chinese government has
set aside 32 reserves for the giant panda. However, the reserves are spread far
apart, and fragmented. The panda population is actually split into small little
islands of populations and there’s no exchange of individuals between these
areas. Recent research indicates that we can put the pandas in habitat
corridors that they put between the islands, to encourage them to come down out
of one island, traverse through the corridor and up to another island and this
will give genetic exchange and reduce the problems of inbreeding in the small
populations.
But panda fieldwork is still
tackling the basics and researcher Matt Durnin joined Chinese colleagues at
9,000 feet to study pandas in the wild. He wanted to find out just how many
pandas are left and where they are. Twenty years ago, researchers relied on
live animal traps, and the pandas were radio-collared and released. Today, new
technology gives us a way to study pandas without actually ever seeing them. A
high-tech method uses a simple barbed wire that plucks hair of the animal as
they walk underneath. Through advanced DNA analysis, these collected hairs can
tell us not only how many pandas are left in the area, but it can indicate
their sex, age, and who’s related to whom. Matt is also finding the pandas need
more than just bamboo. They have learned from previous work, if pandas simply
relied on bamboo, then there should be more pandas up there. And the question
remains: what may be limiting the size of that population.
It’s possible that there are
too few den cites. It seems female pandas choose larger trees for their dens,
yet unfortunately, logging has taken the biggest and the best of them. If there
are in fact too few large trees, we may for example want to introduce
artificial den cites to try to help the female pandas reproduce better and near
their offspring. With an increase in captive population, there’s a growing hope
for reintroduction. The information we know about the behaviors that we’ve
learned from captivity in the information we’re graining from our work in the
field are going to be crucial to the success of any future reintroduction. What
we learn about giant pandas in the wild will make a big difference in how we
care for them in captivity and more importantly we may one day know enough to
be able to return them to the Bamboo Mountains where they belong. ‘Pandas play
a crucial role in the bamboo forests where they roam by spreading seeds and
facilitating growth of vegetation. The panda’s habitat is at the geographic and
economic heart of China, home to millions of people. By making this area more
sustainable, we are also helping to increase the quality of life of local
populations. Pandas bring huge economic benefits to local communities through
ecotourism.
This peaceful creature with a
distinctive black and white coat is adored by the world and considered a
national treasure in China. The panda also has a special significance for World
Wildlife Fun because it has been WWF’S logo since their founding on April 29, 1961.
According to WWF, the
inspiration for their logo came from Chi-Chi: a giant panda that was living at
the London Zoo in 1961, the same year WWF was created. WWF’s founders were
aware of the need of a strong, recognizable symbol that would overcome all
language barriers. They agreed that the big furry animal, with her appealing
black-patched eyes would make an excellent choice.’ Today, WWF’s trademark is
recognized as a universal symbol for the conservation movement.
WWF was the product of a deep
concern held by a few eminent gentlemen who were worried by what they saw
happening in our world at that time. Its first office was opened on September
11 that same year in Morges, Switzerland. Its creation is marked by the signing
of the founding document called Morges Manifesto that lays out the formulation
of its establishments. And since those days, WWF has grown to be one of the
largest international non-governmental environmental organizations in the
world.
The idea for a fund on the
behalf of endangered animals was initially proposed by Victor Stolen to Sir
Julian Huxley, and with the help of Max Nicholson, in an effort to protect
endangered animals. Today, it is known globally as the World Wildlife Fund for
Nature and its goals have expanded significantly.
Almost all their work involves
partnerships and they team up with local non-profit agencies and other global
NGOs to form relationships with village elders, local councils and regional
government offices. In this day and age of globalization, they work in
businesses that are willing to change.
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