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WWF kicks off Earth Hour 2016 in China

Xinhua, January 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

The annual global event, Earth Hour event will feature some differences in China this year, Shi Quanhua, public engagement director of WWF China told a press conference in Beijing on Thursday.

A total of 1,864 panda figurines will be exhibited in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province in Earth Hour event on March 19, Shi said. The number represents the number of endangered species in China.

The WWF partners with "Heart Panda" project, which has invited over 3,000 designers from some well-known universities and colleges to design their own panda figurines since 2015.

The WWF will also encourage people to "adopt" the toy pandas through an online campaign.

The colorfully panda figurines will help raise awareness of biodiversity and environmental protection, together with one hour's turning off of all non-essential lights, Shi added.

The WWF, with a giant panda as its logo, launched Earth Hour in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, which encouraged people to switch off their lights for one hour to show they care about the future of the planet, and drew in more than 2 million participants worldwide. The event now engages millions of people in over 172 countries and territories.

It has been eight year since Earth Hour came to China. Apart from panda figurines, many Chinese Internet companies have joined in with their own energy saving and environmental protection ideas.

Cheng Junyi, vice president of the marketing department of China's top ride-hailing app Didi, said that many of its products are helping change people's traditional consumption concepts.

"Our products try to help people shape a sharing concept in traveling," Chen said, "People can share vehicles with others without purchasing private cars, which is greener and more eco-friendly."

Chen Lu, marketing director from 58.com, a Craigslist-style classified service in China, said they would roll out a new online platform to help the circulation of second-hand goods. "To reduce waste is also a way to protect the planet," she said.

"Earth Hour is not just an hour of turning off the light. It has become an inspiration for emerging new companies to turn their ideas into reality," said Lu Sicheng, director general of the WWF in China. Endi