Unit 5 Section 1 Listening 2 and 3

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Humans and Wildlife Podcast. Today, we’re going to share stories about the efforts to save the giant panda.

The giant panda isn’t just a national treasure in China.With its unusual black and white coat, it is loved around the world. For example, the logo of the WWF—the World Wildlife Fund, one of the world’s leading organizations in wildlife conservation—is a giant panda. Bing Dwen Dwen, the official mascot of the 2022 Winter Olympics, is another famous panda.

Until 2016, the giant panda was on the Endangered Species List. In 1980, there were only around 1,114 giant pandas in China. However, after decades of conservation efforts, the wild panda population is finally growing again. Now, there are about 1,870 pandas in the country. China’s conservation programme has been an amazing success. There is now hope for the giant panda.

Over the past few decades, scientists have tried to save the giant panda from dying out. There are three main ways of doing this. The first way is to protect the home of the giant panda. Many panda reserves have been set up. In 2021, the Giant Panda National Park was founded. The second way is to bring pandas to breeding centres to make sure they have babies. When the baby pandas grow up, scientists set them free in the forest. The third way is for the government to make laws to protect pandas.

The growing number of giant pandas in the wild shows that these different ways have worked very well.

Although the situation is better than before, giant pandas still face many dangers, mostly due to climate change. So, we need to continue to protect them.