But embarrassingly, the party left just days after a paper in the journal Science blamed tourists for the decline of another more famous panda reserve. “Tourists don’t see themselves as a destructive force, but they are. Even eco-tourists,” said its author, Lianguo Liu of Michigan State University.Is the fund, which chose the giant panda as its emblem, risking the future of the species? Or is it right for tourists to provide the cash needed to save this secretive creature? In March, with the snow still melting in the clear mountain air of northern Sichuan, I visited Wanglang to find out.Wanglang is situated among bamboo-forested slopes on the edge of the Tibetan plateau. Roughly the size of the Isle of Wight, it is one of the smallest of China’s network of 33 panda reserves. But “geographically it is very important,” said the reserve manager Chen Youping.

“We are part of a corridor of panda habitat that stretches round the northern edge of Sichuan province.”Pandas need bamboo to eat and forests to provide cover and shelter. Only in these remote regions of south-west China does such habitat exist today. The reserve has a constant stream of researchers passing through, but what they won’t see is pandas. Nobody here had seen one in the wild for three years, said Chen Only their droppings.Pandas leave a lot of droppings.

They eat 40kg of bamboo a day, and three-quarters of the fibre leaves the body undigested ­ amounting to about 30kg of droppings being deposited each day by every panda. And, because each panda has a distinctive bite, a quick examination of the droppings reveals which panda left them behind. From such analyses, Chen reckons that there are 32 giant pandas here.In the bare, cold buildings of Wanglang’s staff barracks ­ with intermittent electricity, primitive heating and a single standpipe in the yard ­ the WWF-funded equipment of digital cameras, laptop computers and global positioning technology sticks out. As does the new 50-bed visitors’ quarters, another gift from the WWF, partly paid for through planned tourist revenues.But there is no moaning from the Chinese reserve staff as they sit at their desks in overcoats. The luxury quarters house the tourists that fund the reserve.