Heilongjiang Province will build a 17,000-hectare natural reserve in Jidong County and another one that covers 100,000 hectares of land to the east of the Wanda Mountain, local officials said at an international seminar on protection of wild Siberian tigers in China, which closed today.

Jilin Province and the local governments of Russia are also making their own plans to build natural reserves for Siberian tigers.

The wild Siberian tigers may have a better environment of free migration and copulation across the two nations when the establishment of all the natural reserves are completed, experts said.

Siberian tigers are on the verge of extinction, with only 500 left in the world. Most of the Siberian tigers live in the far east of Russia and northeast part of China.

There are only 93 Siberian tigers that exist in China now, not able to form into a group with reproductive capacity, according to the latest international investigation.

Statistics show that about 400 Siberian tigers are still living in Russia with groups that have reproductive capacity.

"Establishing natural reserves will bring mutual benefit to tigers in both countries," said Kolonin G.N., expert with Russian Federation State Committee for Environmental Protection, "Russia has great interests in cooperating with China on the work."

China and Russia have signed an agreement on jointly protecting rare plants and Siberian tigers in the 1990s.

Experts suggested that the two nations should enhance mutual exchange to fight against the illegal poaching and forest activities, move local residents to other places and build a "green passage" for the tigers' free and safe movement.

(People’s Daily 10/28/2000)