Bláskógar

Tigers get more protection in Russia’s Far East, says WWF New Anyuiskii National Park becomes the third national park created this year

For Release: 12/19/2007

Vladivostok, Russia–Today the Russian Government created a new national park that is habitat for the endangered Siberian tiger in the country’s Far Eastern region after six years of research and negotiation by World Wildlife Fund. Roughly the size of Rhode Island, Anyuiskii National Park—1562.5 square miles–is the largest of three protected areas established by the Russian government in 2007.

“Anyuiskii Park is a critical piece of the puzzle for tigers in the Russia’s Far East,” said Dr. Darron Collins, WWF’s Managing Director for the Amur-Heilong. “A core zone of protection in the north, it’s part of a large ‘network’ for tigers that WWF has championed for more than a decade.”

The park includes some of the most pristine forest in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range along the right bank of the Amur River, the Eastern Hemisphere’s longest undammed river. These mountains were the setting for Vladamir Aresniev’s Dersu the Trapper and the 1975 film by Akira Kurosawa based on the book Dersu Uzala.

“Tigers occupy about two-thirds of the new park,” said Dr. Yuri Darman, WWF’s Russian Far East director based in Vladivostok, Russia. “We’ve estimated that five to seven tigers live and will now be protected by Anyuiskii.”

My response to this news, sent to WWF:

I visited two zapovedniki in 2006 and was able to get an idea of the problems that these parks and other protected areas face administratively and otherwise. I’ve been trying to brainstorm ways to help these parks, and am wondering if there is any possibility for WWF sponsorship or employment that would allow more students and eco-tourists to support these parks.

One of the eco-tourism directors I met (Nizhnesvirsky zapovednik in Leningradskaya oblast’) explained that one of several overwhelming problems is a difficulty in attracting new park rangers, ecologists, students, and tourists to the region.

Please let me know if you have any ideas. Without funds from tourism, the parks cannot afford to pay their rangers, and this leaves ‘protected areas’ completely open to poachers, illegal dumping, and other problems. While I am overjoyed to hear that new zapovedniki have been created, I am very well aware that this is only heartening at first glance — it’s the beginning of a solution, not a solution itself. Chinese and Russian poachers don’t give a flying fig that the Amur tiger is protected. They have poached her earnestly in protected areas already (along with the brown bear and other animals).

I look forward to hearing from you