EN RUSSIE, UNE ACTION "PLANTER UNE FORÊT POUR LE LEOPARD" VOIT LE JOUR (source WWF Russia 21 Mars).
In the International Year of Forests WWF invites volunteers to take part in the campaign "Plant a Forest for a leopard!", Held in spring 2011 in an effort to restore habitat of the Amur leopard.
During the campaign in the period from late April to early June by volunteers planned to plant one million saplings of Korean pine in the south-west Primorye. Preparing sites for planting, coordination of work in the field, providing volunteers and tools for planting and another necessary technical support will be provided by specialists Amur branch of WWF Russia. Funds for the purchase of seedlings WWF provided "Citibank" in honor of the 1 million bank customers in Russia. Their landing will be the largest action to restore the habitat most rare cats of the world.
How does this work may help the Amur leopard, whose number is currently estimated at 30-40 individuals? Over a hundred years habitat of this cat down forty times. Under the influence of human economic activities have ceased leopards occur in the border region of Primorye and the Sikhote-Alin. They have almost completely disappeared in the adjacent areas of China.
But the future of forests in the south-west of Primorye, where is the last refuge of the Amur leopard, is called into question. Under the influence of deforestation and forest fires degrade gradually turning into a poor species, the less valuable secondary oak forests, and further to non-forest wasteland. The first sign of the ongoing process of degradation is the disappearance of the conifer forests: Korean pine and fir tselnolistnoy. Only in the last 50 years under the influence of deforestation and fires the area of coniferous-deciduous forests are reduced by more than 2 times!
"Since 2008, the Amur branch of WWF Russia began work on the project to restore forest habitat of the Amur leopard. One of the goals of the project is to increase the area of coniferous-deciduous forest by 50% through effective forest fire protection, planting of coniferous species of trees and care for them, - Comments of Forest Program of WWF-Russia Amur branch Denis Smirnov. - In spring 2011, will cover the landing of Korean pine more than 500 acres at several sites in the Khasan and Ussuri regions. For comparison - an area widely known outside Moscow "Khimki Forest" only twice. "
It's worth considering that once the cedar reach fruiting age (and with proper care the first buds appear on the cedar at 20 to 30 years of age), he could himself "deliver" the seeds for natural regeneration of cedar on the surrounding areas . The main job of "seeding" perform squirrels, chipmunks, nutcrackers and nuthatches, pine seeds that disperse within a radius of 3 km from the fruit-bearing trees. Thus, in the future, even small "islands" of pine plantations will be able to ensure the restoration of cedar on thousands of hectares of secondary forest.
Even arrived on the day, for example, in one weekend, a volunteer will be able to plant between 500 and 1000 seedlings - in the future they can become an entire cedar grove! For those who want to work on a long term crop and begun a variety of cedar wood will be organized a special camp in the Khasan district of Primorye.
Official internet partner WWF campaign to plant a cedar - VL.ru - site of the city of Vladivostok.
Complete information about the campaign "Plant a Forest for the leopard," and record as a volunteer: http://vkontakte.ru/club24725412
