Saving the giant pandas.

The steep, remote mountains of central China provide protection for the last of the endangered giant pandas (see "The Last of Their Kind," cover story, May/June 1999). The forests these charismatic bamboo eaters depend on have been threatened by continuous development, and the pandas have suffered further from waves of poaching. A survey conducted in 1980 estimated the wild panda population had dwindled to a mere 1,000.

For 25 years, the World Wildlife Fund Giant Panda Program and China's State Forestry Administration have worked together to protect pandas by creating reserves, helping abolish logging near panda habitats, and replenishing forests. Jan Vertefeuille, a WWF senior communications officer, says the groups try "to make sure that the isolated habitats get reconnected so that the pandas can find each other." And the pandas have made progress. In June, results from the most comprehensive survey to-date indicated that the panda population has grown by nearly 50 percent--meaning that there are now aproximately 1,600 giant pandas in the wild. CONTACT: World Wildlife Fund, [phone], www.worldwildlife.org.