LETS SAVE pandA

They're cute, they're cuddly and they've just been brought back from the brink of extinction.

We're talking about the giant panda, a global icon that's just been taken off the endangered list, largely due to Chinese conservation efforts. But how exactly did they do it?

It's all about the bamboo
China has been trying for years to increase the population of the giant panda.The bears, China's national icon, were once widespread throughout southern and eastern China but, due to expanding human populations and development, are now limited to areas that still contain bamboo forests.

The success is due to Chinese efforts to recreate and repopulate bamboo forests.

Bamboo makes up some 99% of their diet, without which they are likely to starve.

Pandas must eat 12kg (26 lbs) to 38kg worth of bamboo each day to maintain their energy needs.

There are now an estimated total of 2,060 pandas, of which 1,864 are adults - a number which has seen their status changed from "endangered" to "vulnerable", on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List.

"It's all about restoring the habitats," Craig Hilton-Taylor, Head of the IUCN Red List, told the BBC.

"Just by restoring the panda's habitat, that's given them back their space and made food available to them."