'The Way of the Panda' book

This children’s picture book is a fictional interpretation of how the Giant Panda got its peculiar markings. The premise of the story is based on the two questions surrounding the Great Panda:

  • How did it get those particular black and white markings?
  • What made this meat eater become a bamboo eater?

The story centres on how a hungry white bear who become lost in a bamboo forest. The bear succumbed to his nature and devoured all that the forest had to offer, until there was nothing left.

Realising the error of his ways, the bear learned the ways of the forest and how to live in harmony within it; changing his ways and diet, balance was restored in the forest.

The story suggests that the way we can achieve sustainability is changing the way we think and live. This can only happen if we renew our lost connection with the environment.

The other endangered animals, from the same region as Giant Pandas, feature amongst the illustrations as well as appearing as actual cut-outs in the Bamboo Forest at Adelaide Zoo.