Russian scientists have developed a new Strategy to Protect the Amur Tiger in Russia complete with a relevant action plan. Work on the new draft strategy was part of the preparation for the Tiger Summit, an international forum on tiger conservation scheduled to be held in St Petersburg in September 2010.

On June 7, 2010, the draft strategy was adopted at a meeting of experts on rare mammals with the Commission for Rare Species of Animals, Plants and Mushrooms at Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, which recommended that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment adopt it as an official document.

The first version of the strategy to protect the Amur tiger in Russia was drafted in 1996. It aimed to analyse the 50-year experience of protecting and researching the Amur tiger in Russia, to formulate the main principles and map out a set of long-term, comprehensive conservation measures.

The current condition of Amur tiger populations stands in stark contrast to what it was in the 1990s. Since then, the tiger's habitat in flat lands that are sparsely forested has been destroyed by intensive agricultural development. As time passed, the bonds between tiger populations in the Sikhote-Alin Mountain Range and the East Manchurian Mountains have loosened, and in the next decade these groups of tigers may become completely isolated. Moreover, the number of tigers has been declining. Also, the social and economic conditions in Russia have changed. All these factors necessitated a revision of the old strategy to protect the Amur tiger in Russia.

The new version of the strategy was drawn up in six months by a working group of experts set up on the instruction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The working group comprised the country's leading Amur tiger specialists: Vyacheslav Rozhnov (Doctor of Biology, a deputy director of the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy of Sciences, the chairman of the mammals section of the Commission for Rare Species of Animals, Plants and Mushrooms at Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment - the chairman of the working group), T. Aramileva (the head of the Department for the Oversight of Hunting of the Primorye Territory), V. Gaponov (PhD in Biology, the head of the Tiger Special Inspectorate at the Federal Service for the Oversight of Natural Resources, or Rosprirodnadzor), Yu. Darman (PhD in Biology, the director of the Amur branch of the Russia-based WWF), Yu. Dunishenko (a senior research fellow with the Far Eastern branch of the National R&D Institute of Wildlife and Animal Breeding), Yu. Zhuravlyov (Academician, the director of the Biology and Soil Science Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern branch), А. Kostyrya (PhD in Biology, a senior research fellow with the Biology and Soil Science Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern branch), V. Krever (a biodiversity programme coordinator with Russia-based WWF), V. Lukarevsky (PhD in Biology, a senior research fellow with the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy Sciences), S. Naidenko (PhD in Biology, a leading research fellow with the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy Sciences), D. Pikunov (Doctor of Biology, the head of the laboratory with the Pacific Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern branch), I. Seredkin (PhD in Biology, a senior research fellow with the Pacific Institute of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern branch), J. Hernandes-Blanco (PhD in Biology, a research fellow with the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the Russian Academy Sciences) and V. Yudin (PhD in Biology, a senior research fellow with the Biology and Soil Science Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern branch).
The working group has drafted the strategy and the action plan with due account of the recommendations and proposals put forward by Russian and foreign scientists, such as T. Arzhanova, S. Bereznyuk, A. Vrishch, S. Christie, D. Miquelle, V. Solkin and M. Hotte.

The new draft version of the strategy incorporates recommendations laid down in the Strategy to Conserve Rare and Endangered Species of Animals, Plants and Mushrooms approved by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (Order No. 323, dated April 5, 2004).

The draft strategy was approved by the participants of the international conference "The Amur Tiger in North-East Asia: Conservation Problems in the 21st Century" held in Vladivostok from March 15 to 17, 2010.