Topic Overview

In this final topic, you will learn about conservation development in the context of climate change and disturbance through case study analysis of ebbs and flow of Giant Panda conservation in China. We will be introduced to historic and present status and distribution of Giant Panda. You will analyze key drivers and threats including emerging threats to Giant Panda conservation and discuss about key policies and programs to restore their population and habitat in light of conservation development.

Learning objectives

• Describe and analyze threats and issues of Giant Panda in China.
• Describe and analyze policy, programs and actions implemented for conservation Giant Panda and their habitat.
• Analyze and Explain emerging key threats for long term conservation of Giant Panda.

Required & Optional Readings

Required Readings

• Swaisgood, R. R., Wang, D., & Wei, F. (2018). Panda downlisted but not out of the woods. Conservation Letters, 11(1), e12355.
• Wei, F., Costanza, R., Dai, Q., Stoeckl, N., Gu, X., Farber, S., ... & Yang, X. (2018). The value of ecosystem services from giant panda reserves. Current biology, 28(13), 2174-2180.
• Wei, W., Swaisgood, R. R., Dai, Q., Yang, Z., Yuan, S., Owen, M. A., ... & Han, H. (2018). Giant panda distributional and habitat‐use shifts in a changing landscape. Conservation Letters, 11(6), e12575.
• Qiu, L., Han, H., Zhou, H., Hong, M., Zhang, Z., Yang, X., ... & Dai, Q. (2019). Disturbance control can effectively restore the habitat of the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). Biological Conservation, 238, 108233.
• Yang, B., Qin, S., Xu, W., Busch, J., Yang, X., Gu, X., ... & Xu, Y. (2020). Gap Analysis of Giant Panda Conservation as an Example for Planning China’s National Park System. Current Biology.

Fundamental Concepts

• Topic 4.4 Case study analysis Giant panda conservation in China.pdf Download Topic 4.4 Case study analysis Giant panda conservation in China.pdf

Self-test Quiz (For certificate learning only)

After viewing lecture PPT presentation for this topic, take 10 minutes to take this self-test quiz. It is intended to serve as a quick check points of your learning progress about the factual content for this topic. Immediate feedback or answer key will be provided after your attempt. Click Self-test Quiz 4.4 to start.

Online Discussions (For certificate learning only)

Each week you will participant in the topic discussions of the week. The purpose of these discussions is to enable you to critically discuss and apply the core concepts you learned each week. Each online weekly topic discussion will include two parts: 1) your initial response to topic discussion questions posted by the instructor; and 2) your peer comment on other peer posts. Instructor will post one or two discussion questions related to the assigned module and topic every week. Response to these online discussion question and subsequent peer comment on these responses is mandatory. By doing this, you will enhance your knowledge through multiple perspectives posted by your peers. These questions will be focused on the most important aspect of the assigned module and topic and reflection on how you can apply these concept and tools from the assigned module and topic in your own context. For detailed requirements and grading rubric go to Online Discussions page.

To join the online topic discussions for this week go to Online Topic Discussion 4.4.

Graded Assignment for the Week (For certificate learning only)

Final Term Paper

This assignment ask you to write a term paper on the case that the you selected and developed proposal in 10^th week related to conservation issue in Asia of either a forest ecosystem or species or other conservation issues. Once the proposal developed and you received feedback and approved from the instructor, you then should extend it to a full term paper not exceeding 2500-3000 words. The term paper should contain Title, Abstract (not exceeding 250 words), key word (not exceeding five words), Introduction, objective/research question/hypothesis, Methods, Result, discussion and conclusion.

You will be able to develop skills on specific and clear research question formulation, smart literature review, and critical analysis of available literature pertinent to the research question and synthesize this literature to address the research question. Overall, you will develop and enhance your ability to write a scientific paper. For detailed requirements and grading rubric go to Assignment 3: Final Report/Term-paper page.