China will establish 21 Chinese-Russian cross-border nature reserves. According to the chairman of the Applied Economy Association of Heilongjiang Province, Zhang Chunjiao, they will include Taipinggou Nature Reserve, visited by the Amur tiger Kuzya in 2014, as well as the Liaoning tiger reserve and a nature reserve in Heilongjiang Province.

A total of 8,100 square kilometres of tiger habitat have already been restored in China’s border regions. The planned nature reserves in China will link up with Russian protected areas.

The Amur tiger Kuzya, who was released in the wild in the Amur Region as part of a tiger conservation programme, swam to China in October 2014 before returning to Russia, to the Dichuk Nature Reserve in the Jewish Autonomous Region on the night of 6 December.