City invests in native wildlife to spur tourism economy

While preserving the habitats of giant pandas, Ya'an city in Sichuan province has strived to promote panda culture and build a world-class tourism destination for people from China and abroad.

Fengtongzhai National Nature Reserve in Baoxing county is the birthplace of giant panda culture. The region was titled the 2021 Provincial Natural Education Base.

After the launch of the giant panda national park pilot program, Baoxing has built a cultural tourism village. Covering an area of 5.58 hectares, it has a good environment, clean roads, tidy storefronts and homestays.

The Bifengxia base of the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas is part of the World Natural Heritage of Giant Panda Habitat in Sichuan and boasts many pandas across different age groups. The base was officially completed and opened to the public in 2003.

It integrates scientific research, breeding and tourism functions. There are now more than 50 giant pandas in the base.

Ya'an integrates Bifengxia with surrounding scenic spots, aiming to build a valley resort with giant pandas at its core.

The tourism route is 60 kilometers long and connects scenic spots such as Shangli, Bifeng Gorge and Red Bean Acacia Valley and Wailian Mengding Mountain Scenic Spot.

It is a green development demonstration model with giant panda culture as its core together with other sectors such as healthcare, cultural tourism and leisure agriculture.

At the same time, in order to further protect the habitat, the Ya'an government has adopted methods such as planting bamboo for giant pandas to eat and increasing plant diversity to restore the giant panda's habitat and improve the functions of the ecosystem.

The government has launched 133 ecological restoration projects, restored 14,190 hectares of habitats and established three habitat corridors with a fund of 1.4 billion yuan ($220 million).

The government is building an integrated monitoring system of "sky, Earth and people", increasing the density of wildlife security image monitoring, fire video monitoring, and road monitoring, and initially realizing real-time early warning monitoring, data management standardization, and intelligent data use.

Also, the government is strengthening cooperation and exchanges with scientific research units such as the China Conservation and Research Centre for Giant Panda, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, and carrying out conservation research work on four small populations of rare wild plants and seven rare animal species.