We launched a Public Initiative to protect tigers.

We have developed an action plan to protect tigers and will try to push systematically for change, but this will be extremely difficult. I think everyone understands why. Today we launched a Public Initiative — a focal point for public demand to address this crisis. The Amur tiger is facing a systemic ecological crisis: its prey base is shrinking and its habitat is degrading. According to scientists, in the studied northern population, wild boar numbers declined by 90–95%, while the average annual number of human–tiger conflicts increased more than elevenfold.

We are being presented with one supposedly unavoidable solution: shooting starving tigers that are endangered and listed in Russia’s Red Data Book. At the same time, experts working in tiger conservation have reported an ongoing information campaign aimed at creating fear, portraying tigers as the source of every problem and attempting to legalize their killing. This effort is being driven by hunting interests with influence inside government.

As part of our Public Initiative, we have prepared a document addressed to the Government of the Russian Federation and propose the following:

Create a unified federal tiger protection system. Establish a federal center, an interagency commission, 24/7 mobile response teams, unified response protocols, and a single monitoring system for every conflict tiger.
Introduce special protection for key habitats. Establish a five-year moratorium on new industrial development in the most valuable areas, conduct a federal inventory, and formally designate strict-protection core areas, buffer zones, and ecological corridors.
Stop the destruction of critical territories. In key core areas, prohibit commercial logging, new mining projects, construction of logging roads, industrial harvesting of Korean pine nuts, and hunting of the tiger’s main prey species.
Restore forests and the prey base. Launch a federal program of at least 15 years to restore Korean pine–broadleaf and oak forests, wild boar populations and other natural prey species, as well as the spatial connectivity of the tiger’s range.
Reform the conflict-response system. Lethal removal should be permitted only when there is an immediate and unavoidable threat to human life or when a tiger has an irreversible pathological condition. In all other cases, the response should involve monitoring, deterrence, treatment, rehabilitation, or scientifically justified relocation.
Introduce independent scientific oversight. Every tiger death, serious injury, and forced removal should be investigated; the effectiveness of the entire program should be assessed using biological indicators and subjected to an independent scientific audit every two years.

We will try, friends and allies. The facts are on our side, as is extensive experience in wildlife conservation. The problems facing tigers are confirmed by scientific studies, statements by leading academics, and even members of parliament. These measures are entirely achievable. But the hysteria surrounding tigers continues: calls to shoot more and more of them are only growing.

The Initiative is available on the website, has been pinned, and will remain a long-term effort. This means that rapid change is impossible. We will keep pushing this forward together. We will succeed.