A SUSTAINABLE PLAN FOR CONSERVING FOREST BIODIVERSITY IN FAR-EAST RUSSIA AND NORTHEAST CHINA

An ongoing, trinational project is providing the first environmentally sustainable economic development plan for the Ussuri River watershed (URW) in Far East Russia and northeast China. The URW is host to a uni que mix of northern taiga and southern subtropical biota, and contains many endemic, relict, and highly threatened species of plants and ani mals. In Russia, severe monetary inflation and a shift to a market eco nomy have left some aspects of forest biodiversity in jeopardy, partic ularly policing for wildlife poachers, regulating CITES (international wildlife trafficking) violations, ensuring long-term sustained produc tion of timber and non-timber forest products, protecting unique habit ats, and adequately staffing scientific reserves and funding needed re search. In China, broad scale conversion of remaining wetlands to agri culture and rice paddies, and of diverse native forests to intensively managed, monocultural plantations, is helping to sustain the economy but is sacrificing biodiversity. A proposed sustainable land use plan has (1) mapped resource use areas, including both proposed and existin g transborder nature areas, (2) encouraged foreign investment in both countries, and (3) encouraged sustainable development of natural resou rce markets that will be compatible with long-term conservation of bio diversity. A hallmark of this plan is integrating the needs of the peo ple with the capacity of the land through both environmental protectio n and wise resource use.