Endangered northern Amur (Siberian) tigers have received a boost to their protection through the creation of a new national park in the Russian Far East. The Russian Government signed a decree declaring the new Aniyuiskii national park in December, making it the third established in the Khabarovsk province this year, lessening the extreme pressures on the tigers from uncontrolled logging, construction and wildfires.
“Tiger’s habitats occupy more than two thirds of the new Anyuiskii national park. From now on, five to seven tigers out of 20 specimens living in the Nanai district will receive protected habitats”, says Yury Darman, head of the WWF-Russia Amur branch.
“At the same time, the Anyuiskii Park serves as an ecological corridor, which connects animals from the Anyui River basin with the rest of the population. It will become a link in the chain of ‘the tiger econet’, a network of protected areas, which is now being created by the World Wildlife Fund”.
The national park, 429,000 hectares (more than a million acres) located on the right bank of the Amur River in the Sikhote-Alin mountains is the least disturbed by human activity in the region. Its principal target is to protect the northern group of Amur tigers.
The idea of the creation of a protected area in the Anyui River basin was voiced as early as in the twenties of the past century by Vladimir Arseniev, a prominent Russian writer, traveler and scientist. In the late 90s, WWF and Khabarovsk-based NGO Wildlife Fund started to design a new national park here.
Later other organizations also contributed their efforts to the preparation of the needed documentation, which was approved by the Khabarovsk Province Governor in 2001. However, it took another six years and numerous efforts for the area to receive the official ‘national park’ status.