The 1600 Pandas World Tour project first began in 2008 when World Wildlife Fund (WWF) collaborated with Paulo Grangeon, the renowned French sculptor artist responsible for creating 1,600 papier-mache pandas.
With over 30 years of experience under his belt, Grangeon was able to create the pandas in various poses, emotions, and sizes using recycled paper, as a symbolic representation of the number of pandas left in the wild.
The 1600 Pandas+ not only refers to the population of wild giant pandas living in the wild at the project’s inception 8 years ago, but the plus symbol also celebrates the 17% increase in the giant panda population since then.
After travelling across the globe to countries such as France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Malaysia, the pandas will end their journey on April 10.