INTRODUCTION - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 6

Figure 1.1 China, showing precipitation isopleths (shading) and highly concentrated areas
of human population. Areas north and west of the solid line cannot support
agriculture in the absence of irrigation, and hence qualify as “western China” in
my definition.

Precipitation

0 100 50010001500 Millimeters
0 3.9 19.7 39.4 59.1 Inches

380mm (15inch) isohyet
western limit of non-oasis agriculture
Areas of
Dense
Population

N

0 250 500

Kilometers

the pastoral, like any imposed categorization, will easily find exceptions, and it makes, at
times, for some odd geography (see Figure 1.1). But I believe it is a useful and important
categorization when applied to the domain of nature conservation.
Habitat needed by pandas, despite being located entirely in provinces often included
within China's “Great Opening of the West” (about which more will be said in Chapters
2 and 10), is sufficiently fragile and unique that the only economic activity people can
reasonably expect to pursue within it is small-scale tourism. The nature reserves that
have recently proliferated to conserve pandas, while perhaps not yet functioning fully,
are absolutely crucial. If the setting aside of these lands as panda habitat is not made a
strong priority, they will almost certainly be managed for wood products and/or agricul-
tural crops in ways that simply won't provide homes for pandas.
But as soon as one travels west along the elevational and moisture gradient, past the
point where pandas have ever lived, human impact and uses of the land change, such that
coexistence with wildlife becomes a genuine possibility. Note that I have used the word
“possibility” here and not “certainty,” because it is by no means inevitable that wildlife
can tolerate humans even here, west of the pandas. 6 For that to occur, social and economic