Panda Sanctuary
While making this map I believed that Pandas should be more adored in the world, being more protected and kept safe. In the beginning, I tried to figure a way to showcase them more than they already are, so I researched the places where they existed already. Sadly, most of them live in China and are still going extinct. I then chose China as a reference while making my map and tried to elevate it to increase the number of pandas there is to hopefully one day bring them to other countries.
After determining my base for my map, I needed to know why it is important to save pandas. One of the topics that stood out in almost every source I used was that protecting pandas also meant protecting all the wildlife near them, I tried to showcase them by drawing one of the many animals they would protect which happens to be the pheasant.
Furthermore, the species around them are not the only reasons I encountered, the bamboo forest in which panda’s life help human society thrive. Giant Pandas help spread seeds which in turn help the forest around them grow, and I tried to show this by increasing the number of the bamboo forest as well as the pandas in them around the country. Humans around them use the forest as a source of fuel and that source of fuel would slowly disappear without them.
Another weird, interesting fact about them is that without panda’s river basins fuel agriculture/hydroelectric power plant stations would have never existed and I also showcased these in every river that connected to the pandas/cities.
This map is of a multispecies scale because of the exact reasons I stated in the first and second paragraphs. Helping them would help the animals around them making the situation of a multispecies scale. Animals that live around where they do that would in turn be protected as well include dwarf blue sheep, golden snub-nosed monkey, and crested ibis.
The current maps of pandas now only showcase where they currently live and how their existence is degrading in time. I decided to use this map to showcase a “fantasy environment” because I wanted to show the aspects in which they benefit the environment as well as the increase in numbers of the pandas to hopefully come in time. I believe that this is the exact reason why this map would entail readers to think “in a bigger picture”, about how helping giant pandas thrive would increase the efficiency of life of us as humans as well as the wildlife around them.
My map differs from what I deem void in the common conversations on the environment and deserving attention because when readers or people, in general, think “Environmental studies” they believe that the complexity in the conversation limits their understanding of the subject which cause them to pull back due to not knowing how to help the subject matter at hand. In the map I created as well as the understanding of it, it is quite simple, I want the population to grow together.
Bibliography
- “Giant Panda | Species | WWF.” World Wildlife Fund, 2019, www.worldwildlife.org/species/giant-panda#.
- “Why Are the Red Pandas Endangered?” Sciencing, 2018, sciencing.com/red-pandas-endangered-6775531.html.
- “Why Are Pandas Important?” Reference.com, www.reference.com/pets-animals/pandas-important-ef370616ba825b9f. Accessed 30 Nov. 2020.
- “Why Should We Save the Giant Panda?” Panda.org, 2020, wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/endangered_species/giant_panda/panda/why_we_save_the_giant_panda/? Accessed 30 Nov. 2020.
- “How to Save Endangered Pandas.” Sciencing, 2018, sciencing.com/save-endangered-pandas-2063160.html.