PANDA habitat in China’s Wolong Nature Reserve is disappearing at the same
rate or faster than habitat outside the reserve’s gates. Ecological degradation
is four times worse now than before the creation of the reserve 26 years ago,
and the panda population is believed to have halved, according to a report
appearing in Science(vol 292, p 98).
“Tourists don’t see themselves as a destructive force, but they are. Even
eco-tourists,” says Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University in East Lansing.
Liu analysed satellite images of the reserve and says that locals have plundered
natural resources like timber to…
