The Eastern Economic Forum held a roundtable discussion on current issues of environmental protection, which brought particular attention to the history of Far Eastern leopard conservation Special Presidential Representative for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport Sergei Ivanov commented on Land of the Leopard’s work to protect these rarest cats.

Assessing the institution’s work, Mr Ivanov noted the obvious successes in preserving Far Eastern leopards: now more than 100 leopards live in Russia, although at the beginning of the 21^st century, there were three times as few.

“The Far Eastern leopard population grew when we put protected natural areas in order,” Sergei Ivanov noted. “Comprehensive measures, including enhanced security, intensive fire-prevention measures and winter feeding of ungulates, allowed the national park to achieve this result and continue to show their effectiveness.”

“We are grateful to Mr Ivanov for such a high assessment of the current results of our work. According to scientists, in order to stabilise the number of Far Eastern leopards, there should be at least 150 adults in the wild,” said Viktor Bardyuk, director of Land of the Leopard. “Knowing that our daily work bears visible results gives us new strength to continue our work, which will allow us to achieve this figure as well.”