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Rus­sia has estab­lished a new cor­ri­dor link­ing two crit­i­cal Amur tiger habi­tats in the Rus­sia Far East and north­east­ern China, allow­ing the ani­mals to move eas­ily between the national bor­ders.

The 72,700-hectare Sred­neussuri­isky (Sredne-​Ussuriiskii) Wildlife Refuge in Pri­morsky Province, located on the Russia-​China bor­der, links Russia’s Skhote-​Alin moun­tain range with China’s Wan­dashan moun­tain, which are both crit­i­cal Amur tiger habi­tats. The Refuge’s south­ern part is also the unique nest­ing ground of the Ori­en­tal stork. Up to 17 pairs of storks, or 2.5% the global pop­u­la­tion of this endan­gered species, nest on 20,000 hectares of suit­able wet­lands in the Refuge.

With the estab­lish­ment of this impor­tant eco­log­i­cal cor­ri­dor, Rus­sia has ful­filled another of its com­mit­ment on tiger con­ser­va­tion made in 2010 at the Inter­na­tional Tiger Con­ser­va­tion Forum in St. Peters­burg. Rus­sia along with the other 12 tiger range coun­tries had com­mit­ted to dou­bling the num­ber of wild tigers by 2022 at the Forum, which is also known as the Tiger Sum­mit. They also agreed on the Global Tiger Recov­ery Pro­gram, which is an amal­ga­ma­tion of national tiger con­ser­va­tion actions and global tar­gets.

Vladimir Mik­lu­shevsky, Gov­er­nor of Pri­morsky Province, signed the decree for estab­lish­ing the Sredne-​Ussuriiskii Wildlife Refuge on 18 Octo­ber 2012. Together with the 40,000-hectare Pozharskaya Korean pine nut har­vest­ing zone, they play a key role in Amur tiger con­ser­va­tion. These unique broadleaved pine forests in the Strel­nikov moun­tain range are the only eco­log­i­cal cor­ri­dor con­nect­ing tiger pop­u­la­tions in Rus­sia and China.

“Estab­lish­ment of Sredne-​Ussuriiskii Wildlife Refuge is key in trans­bound­ary tiger con­ser­va­tion efforts between Rus­sia and China,” said Yury Dar­man, direc­tor of WWF Rus­sia Amur branch. “With­out this Refuge, it is impos­si­ble to restore tiger pop­u­la­tion in China and pro­vide for the tiger’s exis­tence in the north of Pri­morsky Province. It is an impor­tant step and just the begin­ning. We need to for­ever exclude the Pozharskaya Korean pine nut har­vest­ing zone from com­mer­cial log­ging and trans­fer the lease to local res­i­dents for gath­er­ing non-​timber for­est prod­ucts.”

Pozharskaya is an impor­tant area for both local peo­ple and tigers. WWF is of the view that an amend­ment to Russia’s For­est Code should be intro­duced for all pine nut har­vest­ing zones within the Amur tiger range to not lease them out, but to allow them to serve their main pur­pose, namely that of sus­tain­ing ecosys­tem ser­vices and gath­er­ing of non-​timber for­est prod­ucts by local peo­ple.


The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at WWF global. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.
(Source: WWF Tiger News, 19.10.2012)