New project of cooperation in Amur tiger conservation

On Monday, World Wildlife Fund /WWF/ representatives signed in Khabarovsk an agreement on the start of implementation of a new project on cooperation in Amur tiger conservation.

The signing ceremony was attended by responsible officials of the Fund, representatives of the Russian department of natural resources in the Far Eastern federal district, officials from the hunting ground at the Khabarovsk territorial government and businessmen.

"Since 1994, the World Wildlife Fund has been implementing the first programme of conservation, to be exact, prevention of extinction of the planet's rarest animal, the Amur tiger," Wildlife Programme director Faina Zakharova recalled at a news conference.

At present, thanks to the measures taken the population of Amur tigers in the Russian Far East numbers 450-470 species, while there are 60-70 of them in the Khabarovsk territory. The figure was mentioned by Pavel Fomenko, the co-ordinator of the WWF programme of the conservation of biodiversity.