Work on the first phase of the China Giant Panda Park, a semi-natural habitat for giant pandas, was completed November 25 in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
The park, located in the China Center for Protecting and Research on Giant Pandas in Sichuan's Wolong Nature Reserve, can now accommodate about 20 giant pandas.
Experts said this represents a major step towards sending giant pandas back to nature.
The completed part of the park, which cost more than 4 million yuan, covers an area of 15,000 square meters.
Ma Fu, vice director of the State Forestry Administration, said that the second phase of the park will start as soon as possible.
There are only some 1,000 giant pandas in the world, 150 of which live in captivity. Experts said that most of them have lost their wild nature, and they have difficulty in natural mating.
China has established 33 giant panda nature reserves, covering a total area of 1.6 million hectares.
Since 1991, the giant panda protection and research center in Wolong has bred 49 giant pandas, 37 of which have survived.
(People’s Daily 11/26/2000)
