Is it time to give up on the panda?

The endangered giant panda has long been the poster boy of conservation campaigns, but scientists are divided about whether the money currently invested into its survival can be justified. Should these resources instead be focused on animals that can realistically be saved? Rebecca Nesbitt reports from the Society of Biology debate...

  Should we save the panda? To some people even asking the question is preposterous – what right does mankind have to pass judgement on which species are doomed to extinction? In the words of Dr Mark Avery, former Conservation Director of the RSPB: “Asking a conservationist if we need pandas is like asking a doctor if we need people.” But, like it or not, we have to accept that humans are having a devastating effect on biodiversity and this looks certain to continue.

To discuss the scientific and ethical issues around tackling this loss of biodiversity, the Society of Biology and Linnean Society hosted an open debate during Biology Week. Scientists, conservationists, students and members of the public considered the question of ‘do we need pandas?’ Our lack of resources for conservation means touch choices, and the room was divided about whether saving the panda is a valuable use of our stretched budgets. An online poll on the Society of Biology website revealed that 29% of voters believe that the panda has, in fact, had its day.

Four panelists led the debate: Dr Sandy Knapp, a botanist at the Natural History Museum, Dr Yan Wong, evolutionary biologist and presenter of BBC Bang Goes the Theory, Simon Watt, biologist and presenter of Inside Nature’s Giants, and Dr Mark Avery. The discussion ranged from what we should focus resources on to whether humans are rating themselves too highly, to the use (and misuse) of the panda as an icon for conservation.

Although they are classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, giant pandas are by no means the species at the greatest risk of extinction. The best estimates of the number of pandas which exist in the wild range from 1,000–2,000. Chinese authorities have established a network of panda reserves to protect their remaining habitat, and poaching has been drastically reduced. As a result the population should now be increasing, but this has been very hard to prove. China has also paid farmers on steep slopes to replant agricultural land as forests. It is not yet clear whether this will make suitable habitat for the panda, but it means that China has become first in the world in terms of forest area gained per year.

An often-quoted argument against saving the panda is that ‘it doesn’t help itself’, but this view doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Giant pandas have been around for about 9 million years, and it is only habitat destruction and poaching which have threatened its survival. Studies of wild pandas indicate that their reproductive rates are similar to those of some other bear species.

Does the panda pay its way? Our situation is not as simple as a pot of money for conservation which scientists have to spend wisely. The money comes from many different places, and attracting more donations enables conservationists to expand their work. As poster boys of conservation, charismatic species such as pandas can attract money and support.To take a specific example, keeping ‘Sweetie and Sunshine’ in Edinburgh Zoo costs the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland around £700,000 per year (£636,000 a year to the Chinese government and £70,000 a year on bamboo). Of the money paid to the Chinese government, around 70% goes directly to panda reserves, thus indirectly protecting many other species. Edinburgh Zoo's Director of Animal Conservation, Iain Valentine, was at the debate and believes the pandas were effective at bringing in money. He said: "We're not taking our money away from any other species. The money that the pandas are making for us is going straight back to panda conservation; it's not detracting away from any other money in any of our other projects."

It is surprisingly complicated to determine whether, overall, the panda brings in more money for conservation than it uses (would the money spent by the Chinese government on conservation be found from elsewhere if it didn’t come from ‘loaning’ pandas? Would people who paid for entry into the zoo still come if there were no pandas to see? How would people who make donations towards panda conservation spend the money otherwise?).

To Yan Wong, whether or not pandas pay for themselves is key to answering the question of whether we should save the panda. He raised the question: “Does focussing on one species (e.g. pandas) lead to the best habitat conservation outcome? We probably all agree that we want to conserve interesting habitat. The question is whether focussing on pandas does that.”Perhaps we do need to appeal more to people’s minds rather than hearts when we ask for support for conservation, but for many people, their hearts are going to determine when they put their hands in their pockets.

Using the panda for PR comes with its own dangers. Simon Watt warned of the risk of ‘greenwash’. “If we are going to put poster boys on pedestals they are not just going to be used for good things. It can be a way of covering up all the other problems.”

The PR role of pandas extends beyond conservation into panda diplomacy, when China uses giant pandas as diplomatic gifts to other countries. The practice was first reported from the 7th Century when a pair of pandas were donated to the Japanese emperor and continues today. This demonstrates just how important the giant panda is to China, and highlights how damaging the loss of the panda could be to their environmental credentials.

A thought-provoking question from the audience was whether panda extinction would itself be PR for conservation by shocking people into action. But how many of us even noticed the extinction of the golden toad or the Pyrenean ibex?

A common argument against saving the panda is that we shouldn’t focus on saving individual species but instead design conservation schemes to protect entire habitats, whether these are pristine nature reserves or well-managed agricultural landscapes. This ensures that a diversity of species, right down to the smallest invertebrates, are protected as part of a functioning ecosystem.

However, the choice is not as simple as focusing resources on habitats or species because to conserve species we must protect habitats. Therefore conservation programmes designed for individual species, which in the case of the panda may attract more money, protect habitats. So, while, ‘protecting the most biodiverse habitats’ may be a good aim for conservation, species programmes may still have their place. The caveats to consider, however, include if we focus on species based conservation, if that species goes does that habitat follow?

Many of these arguments are assuming that the panda is just a proxy to ensure we save ecosystems. The fact that species such as the panda get so much attention suggests that species we are attracted to could indeed be amongst the most important species to save. To answer the question of whether to save pandas, we need to think about what we want from conservation.

Sandy Knapp believes: “We need to distinguish between what we need and what we want. We probably don’t need pandas. We want them. We do, on the other hand, need cockroaches.”

We rely on the natural world to keep us alive, receiving services from nature including food, flood protection and raw materials for building and clothing. If a species or habitat is beneficial to humans, or is integral to the functioning of an ecosystem, most people would argue that it should be high up the conservation priority list.

Assigning an economic value to the natural world can be an effective way to attract money for conserving it. The panel were, however, keen to warn of the accompanying dangers. For a start, it is impossible to do. Many environmental goods, such as clean air and water, are not traded in markets and so have no direct financial value. Also, we simply don’t know what benefits particular species or habitats may (or may not) provide in generations to come. Not only that, but if you could destroy mudflats to make way for water treatment works which offered the same service for the same price you almost certainly wouldn’t do it. The natural world offers far more benefits to our lives than the services we can ascribe a price to.

As Mark Avery pointed out, conservation of ecosystem services is not the same as nature conservation. Nature conservation includes protecting the species which we don’t need but we still want. Hence a primary reason for conservation biology is to preserve interesting and fascinating systems which give us intellectual pleasure and insight into nature. Mark said: “If we are not going to care about the natural world then that diminishes us, and we will leave the world in a worse place if we don’t go out and save species like the panda.”

Yan Wong perhaps differed from some conservationists by saying: “The reason we want to conserve life is basically selfish: to help ourselves and future generations.” This certainly seems to be a major rationale for conservation; even conservation schemes, which aren’t normally explicitly designed with benefit to humans in mind, ultimately benefit us, or at least are designed to please us. As a result, Sandy Knapp pointed out that the species on which most conservation money is spent is humans.

This raised the issue of whether we are more ‘worthy’ than other species – should we in fact see ourselves as just another species? Nature is in many ways very fragile, hence the havoc humans are wreaking, but we can rest assured that life will go on long past the time that humans go extinct. Given that our lives cover just a snapshot in the history of life which began over 3 billion years ago, perhaps we should be focussing on species with evolutionary potential.

Although views remained divided over whether we should save the panda, there was universal agreement about the importance of conservation. Recent studies indicate that globally, about US$ 7–10 billion is invested every year in biodiversity conservation, much of it on protected areas. The cost of investing in an ‘ideal’ global protected area network has been estimated at up to US$ 45 billion per year.

It seems certain that we will never have enough money for conservation - the question is: how do we make sure we spend what we have as wisely as possible? It is usually much cheaper to avoid degradation than to pay for ecological restoration. Sandy Knapp said: “We need to think better about what we do. To use an analogy, if we had a crystal glass, wouldn’t it be better to not drop it than to have to glue it back together again and spend lots of money trying to make it look perfect? Maybe what we should be doing is not wrecking things in the first place.”