panda political economy

The WWF refutes the heresy of Packham the Pandacide.

You know what gets me about pandas? When relations between China and the rest of the world started thawing in the seventies, Beijing used to spray pandas around as a reward for just paying a visit. That seemed to stop when Deng or someone realised what a valuable resource they were and began to restrict the supply. You don’t get a panda these days just for showing up. It was exactly at this point that visiting heads of state stopped asking for pandas and starting asking for political prisoners. The supply was greater so the goods were cheaper, and you could go home with a gift under your arm.

Comments

[JamesP]

Rumour says that the only reason the panda was chosen in the first place at WWF was because you could photocopy it in black and white, and publishers had taken (for the same reason) the zebra, puffin, and penguin.

[Chris Williams]

puffin?

[Richard J]

Kiddie imprint of Penguin, wasn't it?

Or was that Pelican?

[Neil]

Puffin books still is that.

I guess a magpie has negative connotations. As does the killer whale, which is also too large to photocopy.

[Tom]

Presumably whoever owns the rights to Postman Pat would have something to say should a cat have been chosen.

What's wrong with a lemur, though?

[ajay]

As does the killer whale, which is also too large to photocopy.

That was always the point at which you knew the Sea World office party had gone too far.

[Richard J]

Ha!