Tuesday, February 2 2010, 06 PM

VLADIVOSTOK, February 2, vladivostoktimes.com The RF Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology will establish an organization committee on preparation for the International Forum on Tiger Preservation Issues. The RF Prime Minister Vladimir PUTIN signed the decree according to which the forum will be held in Vladivostok on September 9-12 of the year 2010, as the Ministry of Natural Resources press service reports.

We would remind that the Russian Federation made an initiative to host the International Forum on Tiger Preservation during the Global Seminar in Katmandu (Nepal) in October 2009 where the national plans on tiger preservation in participant countries were analyzed and recommendations for their development were made. 

The following delegations of the countries with tiger natural habitat will participate in the Forum: Bangladesh, Butane, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, and Russia.  Also the representatives of the leading Russian and international scientific and public organizations will be invited.

Besides plenary session the Forum will include round tables on international collaboration on tiger preservation.

The International Forum will take place in the framework of “Global Tiger Initiative” made by the international organization in 2008 (United Nation Environmental Program and World Bank). This initiative stipulates national level consultations for development of strategies on tiger population preservation in all participant countries.

The RF deputy minister of natural resources and ecology Igor MAIDANOV noted: “The forum will allow coordination of international efforts on tiger population preservation in the world”.

Russia is the only country of the tiger habitat where its number increased since the middle of the last century and it shows stable growth in the recent 10 years. Today the biggest population of tiger in one particular habitat (450 animals or 11% of total world number) dwells in Russia. The majority of them (over 80%) dwell in Primorsky Territory.

In 2006-2008 the RF Government supported the establishment of 3 national parks and federal park “Leopard” which protect 770 thousand hectares of tiger habitat (over 20% of tiger habitat is under special protection today). In 2008 they started the national program on Amur Tiger studying.