Pandas and People. Edited by Jianguo Liu, Vanessa Hull, Wu Yang, Andrés Viña, Xiaodong Chen,
Zhiyun Ouyang, and Hemin Zhang. © Oxford University Press 2016. Published 2016 by Oxford University Press.
CHAPTER 1
A Global Icon for Nature
in the Human-Dominated World
Vanessa Hull and Jianguo liu
1.1 Introduction
Humans depend on nature for ecosystem services, such as clean air, energy, food, spiritual inspiration, and clean water (Daily, 1997, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, Yang et al., 2013). Biodiversity, the various forms of life and habitat that support life, is essential to provide ecosystem services for humans (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiver-sity and Ecosystem Services, 2014). However, hu-mans have created an unprecedented biodiversity crisis (Pimm et al., 2014). For example, many plant and wildlife species have become extinct or endan-gered due to human impacts. For planetary sustain-ability and long-term human well-being, it is crucial to transform human–nature conflicts into harmoni-ous human–nature coexistence (Carter et al., 2012, Kareiva and Marvier, 2015). A global environmental icon—the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)— holds valuable lessons that can help advance such transformation. We illustrate the complex inter-actions between humans and this global icon whose challenges and hopes are similar to those of numer-ous other wildlife worldwide.
The giant panda is a large mammal, with un-mistakable black-and-white coloration, a unique pattern that has attracted curiosity and fascin-ation from humans for centuries (Morris and Mor-ris, 1966). A species currently found in bamboo forests in southwestern China (Figure 1.1), the giant panda’s main food source is bamboo. Bam-boo makes up over 99% of its diet (Schaller et al., 1985). Pandas are largely solitary, living in distinct
but overlapping home ranges roughly 3–10 km2
in area (Hull et al., 2015b, Pan et al., 2001, Schaller et al., 1985). Individuals convene in groups during the mating season in the spring of each year, when multiple males aggressively compete for access to estrous females (Pan et al., 2001). Females typically raise one young at a time and invest 1.5–2 years in raising their offspring (Schaller et al., 1985). Pan-das spend much of the time physically apart from one another but monitor the whereabouts of their neighbors through an advanced scent-marking sys-tem (Schaller et al., 1985).
The Ailuropoda genus first appeared in the fossil record in the late Pliocene era (~2.4 million years ago) in caves of southern China (Jin et al., 2007). The genus evolved from the bear family, specifically the ursid Ailurarctos lufengensis. Fossils of this genus dates back to the late Miocene age (~7–8 million years ago) in the Yunnan province of southwestern China (Hunt, 2004). Profound climate instabilities during the early Pleistocene era caused a large-scale die-off of mammals, including the Ailuropoda. The genus later rebounded and records spread across China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand in the late Pleistocene era (15 000 years ago; Hunt, 2004, Jin et al., 2007). The extant species of giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) also appeared in the fossil record around the mid to late Pleistocene (Wang et al., 2007) throughout all of the aforemen-tioned areas (Tougard, 2001).
By 1800, the distribution of giant pandas had shrunk to roughly 262 000 km2 and was limited
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a g l o B a l i C o N f o r N at u r e 11 Research and management efforts on pandas– people interactions are also poised to help de-velop new approaches and generate new insights to achieve environmental sustainability and im-prove human well-being globally. They have also helped develop and quantify the framework of coupled human and natural systems, in which hu-mans and natural components (e.g., pandas) inter-act (Chapters 2–17, Liu et al., 1999, 2007a, b, 2015). This chapter highlighted three major processes in coupled systems—influences of natural systems on humans, human impacts on natural systems, and human–nature feedbacks (see also Chapter 2). Fur-ther development and quantification of the coupled systems framework can help better understand and manage human–nature interactions around the planet. This can be accomplished by applying and scaling up methods and lessons from one coupled pandas–people system (Chapters 2–14,17, and 18) to other coupled human and natural systems across local to global scales (Chapters 15–19).
1.6 Summary
The giant panda is one of the world’s most well-known endangered species. It has been our focal study species in the past two decades. In this chap-ter, we have explored impacts of pandas on people, impacts of people on pandas, and pandas–people feedbacks. These topics represent major processes in coupled human and natural systems. We began by highlighting references to pandas in Chinese his-torical texts as a symbol for peace and status and more recently as a national icon for China and an international icon for nature. The growth in popu-larity of the charismatic panda mirrors its decline to around 1864 remaining individuals in more than 30 isolated patches. Humans have threatened pandas and their habitat through diverse activities such as timber harvesting, livestock grazing, poaching, road construction, and tourism, all of which reflect the challenge of managing conflicting panda and hu-man needs. The Chinese government has launched aggressive conservation policies to combat human impacts. These measures act as feedbacks geared toward reversing patterns of decline. Examples in-clude strict punishments for poaching, the estab-lishment of 67 nature reserves and implementation was more than 60% (Zhang et al., 2006). Since then,
improvements in maternal and infant care, cap-tive breeding, and artificial insemination more than tripled the captive population between 1970 and 2000 (Zhang et al., 2006). In fact, the captive population reached almost 400 at the end of 2014 (State Council Information Office of China, 2015). The National Conservation Plan stated that the aim of captive breeding should be to bolster the wild giant panda population (Schaller, 1993). However, reintroduction is a complex process with a low overall success rate (~11%) across various animal species (Beck et al., 1994). The reintroduction of pandas has recently been attempted (Hull et al., 2011b, Zhou et al., 2005) and ultimately will only be successful if ongoing threats to the habitat are eliminated (Reading et al., 1999).
1.5 Concluding remarks
As a flagship for conservation, the fate of giant pandas may echo the success or failure of thou-sands of other endangered and threatened species worldwide (Barnosky et al., 2011). Timber harvest-ing, roads, livestock, and tourism also threaten numerous other mammals, birds, reptiles, and am-phibians in the panda’s range and in other ecosys-tems (Bowles et al., 1998, Gossling, 2002, Steinfeld et al., 2006, Trombulak and Frissell, 2000). There-fore, efforts to understand and prevent threats to the panda can help guide conservation of other less studied and less recognized species. For in-stance, studies demonstrating the limitations of nature reserves for the panda (Liu et al., 2001) have contributed to global dialogues on shortcom-ings of protected areas from marine environments (Jameson et al., 2002) to rainforests (Laurance et al., 2012). On the other hand, positive outcomes of PES programs on the recovery of panda habitat (Liu et al., 2008) have contributed to the worldwide appreciation of the utility of this method to con-serve biodiversity while meeting basic livelihood needs of local people (Bulte et al., 2008, Farley and Costanza, 2010). The recent emerging recovery of panda population and habitat also provides hope for nature conservation in the face of mounting human impacts in the Anthropocene.
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