The Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation was signed on November 3, 2015. According to the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia Sergey Donskoy, Bikin will become the largest specially protected natural area in the south of the Far East and will allow preserving key habitats of the Amur tiger.
The park includes: the territory of the state nature reserve of regional importance "Verkhnebikinsky" and part of the territory of traditional nature management of regional importance "Bikinsky". In total, the area of the new national park will be 1.16 million hectares. The project to create a national park "Bikin" was supported during public hearings and agreed with the parties concerned, and also passed a state environmental review. The zoning of the national park suggests that 600 thousand hectares will be allotted for the traditional occupations of small indigenous peoples - for the extraction of animals and fishing. The banks of Bikin since ancient times were populated mainly by Udege. Most of the representatives of this people live in the village of Krasny Yar, located in the lower reaches of the river.
“This is an advanced event in the conservation of the Amur tiger and the maintenance of the existence of small indigenous peoples. Finally, the efforts of many public and state organizations, including ours, have been crowned with success. Specially protected natural areas of federal significance are by far the most effective way to preserve forests and animals. According to the accounting data of the Amur tiger of this year, at least 30 individuals of the Amur tiger live in the entire range of the created park. Now there is still more ambitious work to make the park began to work effectively. To do this, you need to create an infrastructure from scratch and recruit a staff of qualified specialists, providing them with decent funding. The main task of the park is not only to preserve the unique natural complex of cedar-deciduous forests and animals, but also to preserve the traditional crafts of indigenous peoples, as well as their culture, while allowing all citizens of our country to see the beauty of the Russian Amazon”, - the director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center Sergey Aramilev comments.
In 2010, the Bikin valley was included in the provisional list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. In April 2015, the President of Russia, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society, Vladimir Putin signed a special list of instructions relating to the final issues of creating the Bikin National Park. All this was the result of the activities of the interdepartmental working group, headed by the Presidential Aide, Head of the Control Department of the Presidential Administration, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Amur Tiger Center Konstantin Chuichenko.
The Far Eastern Bikin River, which flows on the border of the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krai, is also called the “Russian Amazon”. In its basin there is a large untouched array of cedar-deciduous forests, the area of which is about 4 thousand square kilometers. There is a mixture of vegetation of the north and south: near the fir in the forest grows ginseng and Eleutherococcus, near the rhododendron - cedar and ash, velvet and walnut, near the birch - actinidia and Aralia. In total, taking into account the Amur tiger, 51 species of mammals live here: lynx, red deer, elk, spotted deer, brown and Himalayan bears and others. The vast boggy forests of Bikin are home to 194 species of birds, including the Japanese and Black Crane, Black Stork, Mandarin Duck, etc. There are also 7 species of amphibians and 10 species of reptiles.