The panda reserve has been a victim of its own existence. Towns and settlements have thrived in the Wolong Reserve. The local resident population has increased 70 percent since the reserve was established. This is partly because much of the population is ethnic minority and exempt from China's one child per family policy, Liu explains. Each tourist who comes to see the pandas has caused their habitat to shrink a little more.
Tourists stay in hotels, eat local products and buy local souvenirs.
They take their summer vacations there and stimulate the local economy, which in turn uses more local natural resources. We don't see ourselves as a destructive force, but we are. The Chinese and American panda research team includes Michigan State University Ph.D. students Marc Linderman and Li An in the United States, and in China, Zhiyun Ouyang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and Jian Yang and Hemin Zhang from China's Center for Giant Panda Research and Conservation. To survive, giant pandas need plenty of forest canopy, elevations that allow for comfortable temperatures, and slopes that are not too steep to be uncomfortable. Liu's team combined these criteria to define desirable habitat, then mapped it with satellite and remote sensing data.