propose the creation of jointly managed wildlife preserves on the
Russian-Chinese border. If this was agreed to, one would assemble an
international team to assess forest cover in the border region to see if it
could, given sufficient quantities of prey, support a viable population of
tigers. If this was found to be the case, one would go a step further and
initiate a program to start removing the thousands of snares and other
trapping devices that plague Manchuria’s remaining forests like so many
landmines. A system of protected corridors could then be created,
allowing predators and prey to migrate naturally and safely across the
border as they always have, while increased pressure is brought to bear on
the cross-border tiger trade.
With China engaged as an active participant in the effort to revive one
of its most revered and potent symbols, there would be the opportunity to
move beyond the defensive posture that country has so often taken toward
foreign initiatives and begin to share the wealth of knowledge that
Russians, Indians, Americans, and others have accumulated with regard
to tigers and related matters of wildlife conservation and management. In
order to herald this new era, an international tiger conference could be
convened in a Far Eastern border city, showcasing the Amur tiger and
celebrating the renewed spirit of cooperation between these two
enormous and sometimes tigerish countries. With any luck, this event
might coincide with the Chinese Year of the Tiger, which comes around
every twelve years.
Such scenarios may look like pipe dreams, but, in fact, all of these
things have either recently occurred or are currently in the works. In
2002, the four-hundred-square-mile Hunchun Nature Reserve was created
in China’s Jilin province, adjacent to the North Korean and Russian
borders. Between 2002 and 2007, Chinese volunteers removed thousands
of snares and traps from the Hunchun Reserve. In that same period,
reports of tiger sightings increased by roughly 2,000 percent—from about
five per year to nearly a hundred sightings annually. In 2004, an active
cross-border migration route was discovered on the Ussuri River, and
researchers have concluded that roughly a dozen more tigers are living in
that area. Another viable conduit exists between the Sikhote-Alin and
ron
(Ron)
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