Giant pandas are facing a golden opportunity to enjoy a cozier environment when the World Heritage Committee votes Tuesday to include more sites onto its heritage list.

If the habitat of giant pandas wins approval from the committee, which is holding its 30th conference in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, conservationists said it will not only help better protect the rare animal, but can also promote a more harmonious relationship between man and nature.

The habitat of the critically-endangered species in southwest China's Sichuan Province is China's only candidate for a world natural heritage site in 2006.

The 9,500-km habitat covers nine scenic spots and eight natural reserves, where about 300 giant pandas and other rare wildlife species live.

If the habitat is approved to become a world heritage site, Sichuan plans to expand it into some nearby mountains to create a giant panda ecological corridor in this area, according to a provincial official.

The habitat expansion will provide better environment for genetic exchange and reproduction of giant pandas, the official said.

"The giant panda habitat preserves all the wildlife in this range as well as the ecological environment as a whole," said Cui Xuezhen, former director of the Fengtongzhai natural reserve, located in Baoxing County of the city of Ya'an.

"It is easy to understand, I think, that the people living about will greatly benefit from a well preserved ecological environment," he said.

The major part of the giant panda habitat in Sichuan are located at the upper reach of China's longest Yangtze River.

A good protection over the ecological environment here will be conducive to the water and soil conservation at the lower reach of the Yangtze, and at the same time it will serve as a natural ecological protector to surrounding agriculture and animal husbandry, Cui said.

Ya'an has closed down more than ten pollution-producing enterprises and suspended the production of over 20 factories, demanding them to take cleaning measures.

Local people have learned to protect giant pandas and the environment, even at their own cost, the official said.

"If the habitat becomes a world natural heritage, we can no longer fell wood for fire. That means a change of the traditional way of our life, but it's worthwhile when we think of giant pandas and the environment," said 30-year-old Li Guilin, a villager living at the verge of the habitat. Many locals are following the development of the habitat's heritage application, the villager said.

Li said he frequently saw wild giant pandas when he was young and all his fellow villagers regard them a lovely and auspicious animal, and for generations, they are friends with giant pandas.

The giant panda has become a treasure of the whole world and local people will protect this piece of land not only for the lovely animal but also for the whole world, whether or not the habitat can be included into the world heritage list, Li said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2006)