Sanctuaires du grand panda du Sichuan - Wolong, Mont Siguniang et Montagnes de Jiajin

The local communities are consulted for certain decisions. Nonetheless, there is a lack of trust from the local communities in the local authority due to unrealized promises from past experiences. The engagement of local communities in decision-making process of the local development and conservation is still very limited.
The provincial government has issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of the Sichuan Area of the Giant Panda National Park", and "carrying out the construction of entrance communities and friendly demonstration communities" is one of the important contents. The "Opinions" make it clear that priority will be given to recruiting Indigenous residents in and around the national park to engage in ecological management and protection work such as field patrols and resource monitoring, and to participate in social services such as nature education and ecological experience. At the same time, the administrative villages of the Giant Panda National Park (Sichuan Area) and some of the surrounding administrative villages will be included in the scope of leading villages for rural revitalization in the province, and the relevant policies, projects and funds of rural revitalization will be fully utilized to build villages with thriving industries, ecological liveability and rich life, so as to continuously improve the sense of gain and happiness of the indigenous residents in and around the Giant Panda National Park (People's Political Consultative Conference Daily, 2024). Nevertheless, the extent to which these plans have been realised is unclear.

The Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China defines the overall protection goals, principles, management structures, responsibilities and general measures for protection (State Party of China, 2023). The site is covered by a range of laws and regulations at national and provincial levels. These include the ‘Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Nature Reserves’, ‘Regulations on the Management of Nature Reserves of Sichuan Province’, and 'Regulations on the Management of Sichuan Giant Panda National Park'. A specific regulation relating to the protection of World Heritage in Sichuan Province has been developed to apply to the site, which represented the first of its kind in China. These regulations provide an adequate legal framework for the protection of the site. Challenges to date have centered around their effective implementation and the effective coordination between all relevant agencies and stakeholders (Liu et al., 2012). When the official National Park Law is passed, the site will be under stronger legal protection. The proposed Law on National Parks was presented during the 11th session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress on Tuesday, marking the first legislation at the national level for the parks. Nonetheless, the conflicts between conservation and development have not been fully addressed in the current legal framework, and the creation of a national park has caused new conflicts.

The National Forestry and Grassland Administration is responsible for guiding the management of natural heritage sites nationwide. The property was managed by
its 4 cities, 10 counties, Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Administration (SFGA) and 18 management units (nature reserves, scenic spots) under the common
protection and management planning framework. After the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, the management of the property is guided and
coordinated by the SFGA. The WH site is managed under the auspices of the Sichuan World Heritage Management Committee (SWHMC) and has a cascading structure of governance that includes representatives from the relevant government ministries and agencies involved in the site. The state of conservation report submitted to the World Heritage Committee at 34 COM mentions that “the management authority should establish regular reporting on the property’s state of conservation to the SWHMC, including information on habitat, wildlife populations and the conditions of local people, in order to allow the Committee to proactively manage the property and identify issues of concern early on” (State Party of China, 2010; Sun et al., 2006; Liu, 2011; He et al., 2008; Smith & Xie, 2008; Liu et al., 2012). The site has since been included in the Giant Panda National Park, and follows the regulation and management of the National Park System. However, the management of the World Heritage site is still fragmented. Although included in the national park, previous nature reserve units still manage different areas, and there is a lack of coordination between protected areas. For example, in Siguniangshan, tourism development has a higher priority for site management than conservation and does not follow similar governance from the rest of the world heritage site.
In July 2023, the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress adopted the decision on strengthening the coordinated protection and management of the Giant Panda National Park and the regulations on the management of the Giant Panda National Park. In the same month, Gansu Province and Shaanxi Province also adopted a decision on strengthening the coordinated protection and management of the Giant Panda National Park. Today, the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu are working together to build the Giant Panda National Park in the form of "Sichuan Regulations + Decision of the Three Provinces" (People's Political Consultative Conference Daily, 2024).

China has implemented top-down spatial planning, including the delineation of the ecological redline. With the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, the component protected areas of the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries World Heritage site have been integrated within the wider framework, which should result in better integration into regional and national planning systems concurrently, including a unified and stronger management mechanism through which to coordinate with such planning systems (National Forestry and Grassland Administration, 2019). Nevertheless, the passing of the National Parks Law has not occurred yet.

Through inclusion into the Giant Panda National Park, the IUCN recommended areas are included in the national park and, therefore, protected under the highest level of national designation in China. Consideration is required to better coordinate with the Zoning Control of Giant Panda National Park with respect the boundaries of the World Heritage site (IUCN Consultation, 2020). Although there is a clear boundary setting for the map provided by the authority and the core visiting sites hold clear signs of the world heritage site, the boundary is not clear to the public or the local residents. Recent field surveys found that some parts of the boundaries do not fit to the actual situation including giant panda habitat and other wildlife species distributions and human settlements. Some parts of the boundaries are not recognised by local communities and other local stakeholders. Therefore, minor modifications to the boundaries are suggested (State Party of China, 2023).

Wolong Biosphere Reserve is entirely within the heritage site, which is uniformly managed by the Administration Bureau of the Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province.

At the time of inscription, the World Heritage Committee requested the State Party to implement certain measures regarding management effectiveness, existing infrastructure within the property, existing and proposed dams and tourism development (World Heritage Committee 2006). Certain progress has been achieved in addressing some of the issues as evidenced by the 2010 Mission report – “Efforts are being made on the part of the State Party to enhance management so as to improve the integrity of the property. The problems of hydropower stations and dams have now been reportedly alleviated. A large number of hydropower stations have been shut down and there will be no more hydropower stations or dams (IUCN Consultation, 2020). While action has been taken on all issues identified at the time of inscription, a number of issues remain in addition to some issues arising subsequent to inscription” (Liu et al., 2012). In response of the World Heritage Committee's recommendations to develop better tourism management plan and to consider including more area in south of the property, tourism plans were developed at local level but an integrative tourism plan is still being prepared, and the new land inclusion is under assessment (State Party of China, 2023).

The master plan of the Giant Panda National Park requires the site to reinforce the existing system of natural disaster prevention and control. Coordinating with other departments, the park needs to carry out natural disaster evaluation, monitoring and response. However, there is no specific emphasis on climate action or linking natural disasters to climate change. Considering past events related to extreme precipitation, concerns remain about the lack of emphasis on this issue.

The original conservation management plan is based on 18 conservation management units of the property. Most of the 18 conservation management units have
been integrated. With the establishment of Giant Panda National Park, which is partly overlapped with the property, and restructuring of the management units
(many of them integrated into the national park), the management plan needs to be updated (State Party of China, 2023). A master plan of the Giant Panda National Park was released in 2023, which details requirements and further improvements needed between 2023-2030 regarding the spatial planning, management system, monitoring, research, education programs and, tourism, and community development. The master plan is comprehensive and evidence-based. Most of the existing activities follow the master plan closely with sufficient funding support and institutional support.

China has implemented strict law enforcement in nature reserves regarding illegal construction, mining and logging (Chinese Government, 2017; Aba Government, 2017). However, due to the restructuring of the law enforcement system in China, many protected areas are facing the problem of lacking law enforcement capacity and lack of coordination with law enforcement departments. Although the national park system is addressing this issue, concerns still remain as the efficiency of law enforcement still needs improvement (Chen and Wang, 2024).

The site enjoys overall relatively high levels of finance, with a high level of variation between national and regional level protected areas. Provincial and county level protected areas and buffer areas do not receive enough finance for monitoring and management activities (Liu et al., 2012). The financing structure of the component protected areas, which comprise the World Heritage site under the Giant Panda National Park, has received sufficient funding for infrastructure building and maintenance, and local community development. The funding related to monitoring, conservation and sustainability livelihood still needs to be assessed under the national park system.

Various training and capacity building have been done for the staff working in the national park. However, Shortcomings have been previously noted, with capacity building in disaster risk management especially needed (Liu et al., 2012). A site-based capacity building plan or programme is in place and partially implemented; some technical skills are being transferred to those managing the property locally, but most technical work is carried out by external staff (State Party of China, 2023).

Increased education programs are running at Giant Panda National Park. There is a Giant Panda Eco-tourism Festival held in Ya'an, and a Giant Panda Culture Alliance was established in 2018 to promote education on Giant Panda (Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Bureau, 2019). However, compared to the traffic of tourists in the World Heritage Site, the education and interpretation programs are still insufficient (State Party of China, 2023).

Management of tourism development activities has been greatly strengthened in recent years. Since 2017, the construction of illegal tourism infrastructure in Wolong and other places have been significantly curbed, and all tourism development activities have been subject to strict planning consistency and biodiversity impact reviews (IUCN Consultation, 2020). However, less attention has been paid to increasing tourism staff capacity or tourist visitor awareness of conservation issues (Liu et al., 2012), which could be improved upon further.

Unsustainable tourism and other forms of unsustainable land use have been reported as a concern in the past (Liu, 2011; He et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2012; Smith & Xie, 2008). There is a lack of evidence to suggest that this has been sufficiently addressed and therefore remains of some concern. However, environment-friendly agriculture and sustainable tourism is recognised by the management authority as an important way to promote sustainable resource utilization and a direction of efforts towards these ends is currently being pursued (IUCN Consultation, 2020). There are no guidelines for the sustainable use of natural resources within the site or the national park. The existing regulation either bans certain ways of natural resource use or vaguely mentions traditional livelihood is allowed without specifying whether it is still within the sustainable limit. This creates problems such as overgrazing in certain parts of the site, over-harvest of certain medicinal plant species etc.

There is a comprehensive survey of giant pandas every 10 years, with conservation efforts assessed periodically every 5-8 years (State Party of China, 2023). Monitoring programs for the species can be considered highly effective. The most recent survey (the fourth survey) was finished in 2014. Compared with the third survey, the results of the fourth giant panda survey showed the following characteristics: 1) the number of wild populations increased steadily. The number of wild giant pandas in the country increased by 268 to 1864, an increase of 16.8%, compared with the third survey, and the average population density was 0.072 per square kilometer. Among them, there are 1387 pandas in Sichuan Province, accounting for 74.4% of the total wild pandas in the country. Second, the scope of habitat is obviously expanded. Habitat area increased by 11.8% and potential habitat area increased by 6.3% (National Forestry and Grassland Administration, 2015). In recent years, there have been increasing efforts to monitor snow leopards in the alpine area (Tang et al., 2017). Comparatively, the monitoring of other species is less systematic (World Heritage Committee, 2012).

Key indicators: Conservation effects (giant panda population and habitat conditions, species richness, rare and endemic species population, invasive species, etc.), management
effectiveness ( the intensity of human activities, forest fire-prevention, pest control, illegal hunting prevention, etc.), management features (protection management
organization, rules and regulations, etc.), the sustainable development (poverty population and poverty alleviation, etc.) capacity building (the number of staff etc.)

Much research has been done in the site, but this is still not enough to meet the existing challenges. Especially needed is research that would integrate biodiversity conservation, rural development and disaster risk reduction for overall sustainability and resilience of the World Heritage site.

Giant panda habitat conservation has a long history and China has put significant efforts towards this end. Since 2018, the area has been included in the new development of the Giant Panda National Park, which should extend protection of key habitats outside the site and improve ecological connectivity. Concerns regarding tourism management and urban development outside of the site are subject to attention from the management authorities, having been a concern in the past. Overall, the management system does not have the capacity or power to address the conservation issues outside the site.

Some concerns were expressed at the time of the inscription of the property with regard to the management effectiveness. The World Heritage Committee requested the State Party to “Ensure the Sichuan World Heritage Management Committee has sufficient powers, resources and authority to ensure it can effectively carry out its role in relation to the management of the property, including in relation to the review and approval of any major development proposals which may impact on the natural values of the nominated property” (World Heritage Committee, 2006). However, even with the establishment of the Giant Panda National Park, several conservation threats persist, such as extensive livestock grazing, trespassing of illegal hikers, poaching, and illegal natural resource exploitation.