Central Sikhote-Alin

• Management systems/ management plan (incomplete process of configuration and designation of the property’s buffer zone; and need to finalize the Integrated Management Plan)

N/A

On 1 December 2022, the State Party submitted a report on the state of conservation of the property, which is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/766/documents/ and on 20 March 2023, it submitted additional information at the request of the World Heritage Centre, reporting the following:

• Progress has been made towards expanding the Sikhote-Alin Reserve by a further 500 hectares (ha) of terrestrial territory and 1,200 ha of the marine area in the Sea of Japan;
• Cadastral work has been carried out by staff of the scientific department of the Sikhote-Alin Reserve to delineate the proposed extended boundaries of the reserve and the buffer zone, alongside scientific justification for the inclusion of these areas within the reserve. A dossier is being prepared for submission to the Government of the Russian Federation to approve the extension of the reserve;
• The process of preparing the rationale, draft regulations and the boundaries of the buffer zone of Bikin National Park has been completed, and approval is currently being sought from the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krai administrations. In 2023, the necessary documents will be sent to the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources for approval;
• In 2019, a Coordinating Council for the property was established, including representatives from the Sikhote-Alin Reserve and the Bikin National Park. The tasks of the Council include the development of a Joint Action Plan aimed at developing educational tourism, expanding scientific research, including the study of the Amur tiger. Council meetings are held, as necessary, to resolve topical issues on the joint management of the property;
• On all tourist routes of the reserve, monitoring plots have been established, and flora and fauna monitoring activities have been carried out through floral inventories and camera traps;
• In 2022, a new tourist route ‘Trail of Tigers’ was opened in the central part of the reserve and the cedar-broad-leaved taiga zone. The trail will reduce the load from tourist flow in other parts of the property making it possible to increase the number of visitors to the reserve every year, without harming the unique natural ecosystems.

The establishment of a Coordinating Council for the integrated management of the property is appreciated, and the State Party should be encouraged to ensure that the Council continues to implement tasks proposed in the Joint Action Plan of the Integrated Management Plan (IMP) that will enhance integrated management of the property. The State Party should be encouraged to ensure that representatives from all component parts are represented on the Council.

The progress on finalizing the buffer zone around the Sikhote Alin Reserve and the Bikin National Park components is noted. However, no information is provided regarding the area of these buffer zones, which need to be of an adequate size and configuration to effectively provide ecological connectivity for the whole property and protect it from threats arising from outside the property boundaries, as noted in the 2018 IUCN Evaluation report and related Committee decisions. The Committee should therefore reiterate its request to the State Party to ensure that the process of designating an adequate buffer zone for the property is undertaken in a coordinated manner across all components and to finalize the formalization of buffer zones for the whole property, consistent with the requirements of the Operational Guidelines and in line with the recommendations of the 2018 IUCN Evaluation.

Efforts to increase the territory of the Sikhote-Alin Reserve as part of measures to enhance connectivity of tiger habitats are noted with appreciation. Once the extension is completed under national legislation, the State Party should be encouraged to develop a proposal for a minor boundary modification to align the boundaries of the World Heritage property with those of the extended reserve and, in addition, to formally designate the abovementioned buffer zone under the Convention, in line with the Committee’s previous requests. However, previous concerns regarding connectivity at the landscape level, including but not limited to effective buffer zone arrangements and measured land and resource use remain. Therefore, the State Party should be urged to further address the recommendations made by the Committee to develop and adopt a long-term vision to ensure connectivity of Amur tiger habitat at the landscape level through a range of strategies, including building enhanced connectivity with other protected areas and investigating conservation connectivity strategies outside the formal protected area system. 

Conflicting information was provided by the State Party regarding the development of an eco-tourism strategy for the Sikhote-Alin Reserve and the implementation of comprehensive monitoring activities to monitor the impacts of visitation on key species. The State Party should therefore be requested to clarify the status of the strategy and submit it to the World Heritage Centre, for review by IUCN, when available. To ensure its sustainable implementation, the strategy should include a monitoring and action plan that clearly defines the type of activities permitted and describes how impacts of tourism and recreational use will be monitored and controlled across the entire property.