Giant pandas Yang Bang and Hai Bang at the Adventure World amusement park in Shirahama, Wakayama prefecture, Japan, June 4, 2017.[Photo/Xinhua] Three giant pandas that returned from Japan will meet visitors after a monthlong quarantine is completed at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province. Two experienced keepers will care for Hai Bang, Yang Bang and You Bang in their new residence opposite the main office building of the base, said information officer Chen Cheng. The panda residence is in the base's old animal hospital, which has no other panda inhabitants, she said. To help the trio adapt, a Japanese keeper will stay at the base for several days. The keeper brought some water and bamboo from Japan, as the pandas were accustomed to it. Their Japanese food might be slightly different from that in the base, Chen said. Zhang Hemin, executive director of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wenchuan county, Sichuan, said pandas born overseas should have no problem with their new Chinese home, as the species has a marked ability to adapt to new environments. The three pandas were born at the Adventure World amusement park in Shirahama, Wakayama prefecture, Japan, in 2010 and 2012. Hai Bang, a male, and Yang Bang, a female, are twins. Their mother, Liang Bang, now lives in Japan; she was born in 2000. One major reason for their return is that they have reached a sexually mature age and need partners, Chen said. Back in 1994, with the approval of China's central government, the base began collaborating on panda research and breeding with Adventure World. Fifteen panda cubs have been born in the park. Eight of them were previously sent to the Chengdu base, Chen said. Under an agreement for global giant panda preservation, pandas born overseas belong to China and must be returned to the country after they turn 2. Chen declined to comment on why the three pandas born in Japan had their stay extended for such a long time. Before their departure from Japan, a grand send-off ceremony was held at Adventure World, and around 1,200 Japanese fans said goodbye. logo braceletspersonalised silicone wristbandspersonalized rubber braceletscheap silicone wristbands ukcheap silicone wristbandsmake rubber braceletscustom printed wristbands
China released regional rankings for its green development index on Tuesday, the first time the country has evaluated local performance based on environment-related indicators rather than speed of GDP growth.Analysts said the move will help the country achieve a more coordinated social, economic and environmental development.Beijing tops the overall green development rankings among 31 provinces and regions on the Chinese mainland, followed by Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Chongqing, according to results released by the National Bureau of Statistics. The Ningxia Hui, Tibet and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions round out the bottom three.The index covers seven major subindexes, including resource utilization, environmental governance, environmental quality, ecological protection, growth quality, green life and public satisfaction. Indicators such as total energy consumption, carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product and total water consumption are included in the assessment system.The capital stands out in terms of environmental governance, quality of growth and green life, but it falls toward the bottom in terms of environmental quality.China has made more efforts to upgrade its growth model and improve its ecological system since 2013 and at the 19th CPC National Congress in October the leadership further called for attaching importance to the coordinated development of economic, social and environmental development and urged improvements to the country's economic and social development assessment system.The index will play an important role in improving the social and economic development assessment system and guide regions and departments to implement new development concepts and form better career performance concepts, said Ning Ji¬zhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission."Ecological civilization construction is a long-term, tough systemic project and annual appraisals (of green development) will be standard in the future," said Ning, who also is head of the bureau of statistics.The public satisfaction sub-index, based on surveys by the bureau, includes 14 indicators, such as natural environment and local pollution and environmental management, said Jin Yongjin, an economist at Renmin University of China.The public satisfaction survey has been conducted seriously and thoroughly in all areas, he said. "So the results are reliable and persuasive."The move to survey public satisfaction is "down-to-earth" and "supported by the public", said Li Xiaoxi, an economist at Beijing Normal University.He said the green development index "can reflect the overall development of protections for ecological systems in China's provinces and regions"."It is a powerful measure for China to accomplish its green development strategy and provides a valuable basis for officials at all levels, especially provincial-level officials, to implement a green development strategy and the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20)."Local authorities have started to map out their own assessment rules to implement the central government's new policy.In Hainan, for example, the provincial government has released a new development assessment method that no longer includes GDP, industrial output or fixed-asset investment growth in assessing the performance of 12 out of 19 cities and counties in the province. Meanwhile, failure to meet ecological and environmental protection standards will be equal to a veto in assessment of local development, according to the new rule.
