Recent investigations show there are currently over 1,000 giant pandas alive in China, the nation's highest forestry authorities announced Thursday in Beijing.

According to the State Forestry Administration's numbers, by the end of last year, the number of giant pandas raised in captivity in China had surpassed 110. Captive pandas gave birth to 20 cubs in 2000, 18 of which are alive.

At the Sichuan-based Wolong Giant Panda Research Center, 12 cubs were born and only one died. According to sources with the center, the low mortality rate is a new record.

A forestry administration official said Thursday that these numbers are encouraging as China plans to strengthen wild animal and plant protection, speed up construction of nature reserves and bolster wetlands preservation in 2001.

The government will also launch efforts to crack down on animal poaching, the official said.

In the run up to the World Wetlands Day, which falls today, Yan Xun, chief of the department's Nature Reserves Management Division, said wetlands are ecologically and economically useful, but China is not doing enough to protect them in the face of reckless development.

According to Yan, China has 659.4 million hectares of wetlands -- including rivers, coastal regions and marshland -- amounting to 10 percent the global total.

During the state's Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000) period, 14 protection and breeding centers were built to reinforce populations of South China tiger, snub-nosed monkey, red-crested crane and other rare animals.

Meanwhile, more than 400 bases have been established across the state to protect endangered and rare plants, Yan said.

As for more active forms of animal protection, Yan said China launched 95 massive anti-poaching operations last year, which led to the discovery and elimination of 1,567 illegal animal taming groups.

At the end of last year, the State boasted 1,276 nature reserves of various kinds, amounting to 123 million hectares, or 12.44 percent of the country's total land area.

"Most of the rare and endangered animal and plants are well protected in the reserves," Yan said. He added, however, that reserves will need to be enlarged in the future to maintain the country's environmental integrity.

(China Daily 02/02/2001)