XI'AN - Five green corridors will be built to link 16 reserve areas in northwest China's Shaanxi Province in the next five years to help giant pandas from different colonies "make friends" and "seek their Mr or Miss Right," a local forestry official said Saturday.

The corridors of several kilometers wide will be built by planting trees and grass and digging tunnels under highways, said Yuan Wei with the provincial forestry department.

The province has 22 pandas in captivity and 273 in wild, which live in 16 reserve zones. The zones are cut off from each other by mountains, rivers or roads, making it impossible for pandas from different zones to meet and mate, said Yuan.

"By linking the different zones together can help preventing inbreeding and better protect the species," said Yuan.