During his visit to the Primorye Territory, Chief of the Presidential Executive Office Sergei Ivanov has inspected the construction site of the Narvinsky Tunnel, which will help Far Eastern leopards to safely cross the area where a motorway runs through their habitat.

The facility is due to be launched in August 2014, Mr Ivanov was told.

According to Primorye Territory Deputy Governor Vladimir Balan, about 300 m of the tunnel's 575 m is already completed. The work is due to be completed and the facility commissioned next August.

The decision on the Narvinsky Tunnel construction was adopted by Mr Ivanov, who supervises the Far Eastern Leopard Conservation Programme, back in 2010. The 216 km long Khasan-Razdolnoye motorway of regional importance connects the Primorye Territory's border areas with the Far Eastern Railway stations and provides links to China and North Korea, as well as access to the sea ports of Posyet and Zarubino as part of the Primorye-2 transport corridor. The 76th kilometer of the motorway (near the Narvinsky pass) is located in the southwestern part of the Primorye Territory and runs in a narrow passage between specially preserved territories of  Land of the Leopard National Park, with the Leopardovy Wildlife Preserve to the right and the Kedrovaya Pad Nature Reserve to the left. This conservation area is the most important habitat of the Far Eastern leopard on the Borisovskoye Plateau.