A sustainable plan for conserving forest biodiversity in far East Russia and northeast China

Abstract

An ongoing, trinational project is providing the first environmentally sustainable economic development plan for the Ussuri River watershed (URW) in Far East Russian and northeast China. The URW is host to a unique mix of northern taiga and southern subtropical biota, and contains many endemic, relict, and highly threatened species of plants and animals. In Russia, severe monetary inflation and a shift to a market economy have left some aspects of forest biodiversity in jeopardy, particularly policing for wildlife poachers, regulating CITES (international wildlife trafficking) violations, ensuring long-term sustained production of timber and non-timber forest products, protecting unique habitats, and adequately staffing scientific reserves and funding needed research. In China, broad scale conversion of remaining wetlands to agriculture and rice paddies, and of diverse native forests to intensively managed, monocultural plantations, is helping to sustain the economy but is sacrificing biodiversity. A proposed sustainable land use plan has (1) mapped resource use areas, including both proposed and existing transborder nature areas, (2) encouraged foreign investment in both countries, and (3) encouraged sustainable development of natural resource markets that will e compatible with long-term conservation of biodiversity. A hallmark of this plan is integrating the needs of the people with the capacity of the land through both environmental protection and wise resource use.