Russia, China to take measures against poachers

General Pavel Tarasenko, the head of the Pacific Regional Department of Russia's Federal Frontier Service, and Youye Huilai, the Commander of the Jilin Provincial Military District of China's People's Liberation Army, met in Russia's Far Eastern administrative center of Vladivostok on Wednesday to sign a joint protocol of measures to strengthen the Russian-Chinese border in Primorye.

According to the Protocol, the Chinese side undertakes to set up 34 additional frontier posts along the border of the Khasan district and the Jilin province. /In all, there are 78 frontier posts on this section of the border./ It also undertakes to reinforce border-guards duty details and do some extra educational work among inhabitants of these particular border areas, of whom there are more than 100,000 people.

According to General Tarasenko, the Chinese are taking all these strict measures on urgent request of the Russian side, which is worried that the upcoming ginseng season will attract numerous Chinese poachers to the Russian territory. Apart from ginseng, poachers often cross the border to hunt for bears, deer, must-deer /all of them rare species/, seafood /trepang and crab/, frogs and ferns.

Youye Huilai, on his part, expressed a conviction that close cooperation between the countries would reduce the number of infringements and streamline good-neighbourly relations between Russia and China.