SICHUAN (CHINA): The young giant panda is snoozing up a tree, in classic panda pose. His substantial bum is splayed over the fork of one branch, while his head and one paw dangle over another branch to counterbalance the weight. Above and beyond are wooded slopes, deep gorges and — eventually — primeval forest.

The largest number of pandas surviving in the wild live here in the Wolong Nature Reserve of Sichuan province in western China.

There may only be 1,000 or so pandas left in China (only fossil remains have been found outside), scattered across six separate mountain ranges from north-west to south-west. Abroad and at home, “saving the panda” has been a high-profile business for more than 20 years.

The Chinese government has set up a string of reserves and taken increasingly tough measures to preserve the panda’s habitat. At first the emphasis was placed on research and “rescuing” pandas at risk in the wild. Rescue was often a euphemism for capture in order to stock Chinese centres and zoos, and to trade with foreign institutions in return for money — usually referred to as “rent-a-panda.”

In the past 10 years, the emphasis has shifted towards breeding, to maintain the captive stock and — in theory — provide an eventual source of animals to reintroduce into the wild.

But the Chinese panda breeding effort has been undermined by internal arguments. Wolong and the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base at Chengdu, 150 kms away, are supposed to work together, but as so often in China, organizations which should work together are at war.

Wolong has declared its intention to “send pandas back into the wild” by 2005.

Other experts are not convinced. “Reintroduction may or may not have a role,” says biologist Donald Lindburg of the San Diego Zoo, “but there is still a long way to go.”

The breeding enthusiasts are blunt about the pandas’ sex life. A notice in the Chengdu panda museum spells it out. “The male panda’s penis is so short, and the female’s vagina is so long relatively, that the insemination rate is low.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, male pandas are poor performers away from nature. If they do manage to mate, it will be under close scrutiny.

No one denies that captive populations are needed for research and to maintain public support for conservation. But critics say that the current emphasis on breeding and reintroduction ignores some awkward facts.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.