Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are only found in six mountain areas along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau in China, due to habitat loss and fragmentation over the past 50 years. Currently there are approximately 1,600 pandas in the wild. Forty protection areas for giant panda have been established in China since 1963. As one of the four first reserves, the Wolong Nature Reserve is located high in the Qionglai mountains of Sichuan province, China. In 1975 it was expanded to a current size of approximately 200,000 hectares and is now the second largest reserve for giant pandas. Extending from 1,250 to 6,250 m in elevation and supporting several climate zones, the reserve is within a global biodiversity hotspot area, has diverse flora and fauna, with many species found nowhere else in the world. As one of the earliest nature reserves established in China, the first nature reserve opened to western scientists, and with its large wild giant panda population (ca. 150 individuals, approximately 10% of all wild individuals), Wolong Nature Reserve is considered as a flagship reserve in China and attracts global attention.

Although it has been more than 40 years since the establishment of the first reserve for giant pandas in China, the loss and fragmentation of their habitat still remain as the main threats to the sustainability of the population. Between 1975 and 1989, when intensive panda studies were initiated, half of the panda habitat in Sichuan province was lost due to logging, agricultural activities and road construction. Wolong is not an exception; it was shown that panda habitat deteriorated after Wolong was established as a reserve due to pressure from increasing human population and household numbers. About 80% of local people in Wolong are Tibetan or Qiang minorities, to whom China’s Location of Wolong Nature Reserve "one-child" policy does not apply.During the last three decades human population in Wolong has increased about 80% to around 5,000 and the number of households has increased about 170% to over 1,200. Most local people in the six villages of Wolong Nature Reserve live with low life standard, low income, limited education, low nutrition intake, and poor primary health care.

Similar to many other rural areas in China, the education system in Wolong Nature Reserve is still not well-developed, although significant progress has been made since the first two elementary schools in Wolong and Gengda townships were built in 1930’s. Currently there are seven primary schools, one middle school and one high school, with a total of around 1150 students in year 2005.

The mountainous topography creates a lot of difficulties for children to access to relatively good schools in the township. There are four primary schools located in the remote area of the reserve far from the main road; due to the poor transportation system in the mountains and low household income, some children have to choose these nearby small schools with even poorer education condition. Each school has only 1-2 part-time teachers with extremely low income (< 40 US$ / month) and about 10-20 students. There is barely any educational funding for these village-level schools. Very often, in these schools, not even the teachers have enough money to buy the good textbooks and sufficient instruction materials.

The public health system in Wolong Nature Reserve was poorly developed. There are only three small hospitals with a few doctors and nurses and inadequate medical equipments. To access to better health care local people have to travel more than 70 kilometers outside the reserve to the Dujiangyan city, but many families cannot afford it, especially those who live in the remote areas far away from the major road across the reserve. Some people even died without being treated.

The reserve government has been working on improving the hospital system through building two new larger hospitals, which will be completed by the end of 2007. However, very few households in Wolong can afford such services or health insurance. Currently fewer than 10% of the children have enrolled in the government’s child health care fund program, which costs only 60 RMB (about 8 US$) each year. A new self-organized health fund system was initialized in several villages in winter of 2006, in which each person contribute 10 RMB (about 1.3 US $) to the fund to pay for the health care of the poorer households in the community, but that is far from enough considering the increasing price of health care and medicines in China.

It will need a lot of efforts and fund and involve other socioeconomic issues to improve the overall health and education situations for local people in Wolong Nature Reserve. However, our practice in the past has shown that by targeting those people who need help mostly and making donations to them, small amount of money could turn into significant positive impacts.

Here are some photos taken from Wolong Nature Reserve during 2001-2005 by graduate students from Center for System Integration and Sustainability (CSIS) at Michigan State University, USA.

  
Students in class


The building with red roof in the center of the above picture is one of the four remote primary schools with only first two grade classes taught in the same room and by the same teacher.
All kids are from the households living on the slope.

  
After school, study at home


Summer break, at home