Educational Tourism Center – Visitor Education As a demonstration project of giant panda ex-situ conservation, the Chengdu Panda Base has not only dedicated itself to giant panda conservation, but has also made great efforts to combine natural scenery and man-made landscapes to create wonderful and humane living areas for giant pandas, red pandas, and other Chinese endangered animals. With the efforts of all the staff at the Panda Base, we have made great strides in the name of environmental protection to share with the world. Our Giant Panda Museum, along with satellite museums in our Research Center and Panda Hospital provides 7,000m 2 of educational space to foreign and domestic visitors. We worked with design companies from the United States to create modern, interactive learning experiences. Through these learning areas, visitors will come to understand the depth of research and commitment it takes to help endangered species to survive in our world that is dangerously dominated by human influence. People the world over need to understand that this amount of research cannot be done for all the plants and animals that are in danger, and that conservation depends on all of us. Our Base is a unique facility and network for some very fortunate species. As a famous sightseeing destination and a window to the wild, we improved our service facilities for tourists. Our efforts have made the Panda Base attractive to foreign and domestic audiences. We will fully use the resource of our endangered animals to strengthen conservation education to the public, and develop the Panda Base to be a unique educational tourism destination. Source:(www.panda.org.cn) Editor: Eric Update:2009.03.16

Wolong National Nature Reserve     Wolong National Nature Reserve (simplified Chinese: 卧龙自然保护区; traditional Chinese: 臥龍自然保護區) is a protected area located in Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China. Established in 1963, the reserve covers an area of about 200,000 hectares. There are over 4,000 different species recorded in the reserve. Wolong National Nature Reserve houses more than 150 highly endangered giant pandas. In June 1980, the China Research and Conservation Center for the Giant Panda was established with the efforts of both World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Chinese government. To this date, researchers have conducted many breeding research on giant pandas and have successfully bred 66 panda cubs. The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) first appeared in the evolutionary record some two to three million years ago. (Photos courtesy Giant-Panda.com) Panda preservation has been a highly popular and publicized effort. The reserve has received considerable financial support from the Chinese government and international organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund.