Natural Heritage Protection Fund together with Moscow and Primorsky Kray scientific organizations and NGOs and under the auspices of WWF Amur Branch began to prepare "Bikin River Valley" nomination for the purpose of the "Central Sikhote Alin" property extension.

Nominated territory together with Sikhote-Alinsky Reserve, which already inscribed on the List, is one of the key habitats of Amur tiger. The extension of the property by means of extra vast area of Bikin River valley would promote successful recruitment of the Amur tiger population and conservation of world exclusive "ussuriyskaya taiga" entire massif in natural state which is the habitat of much endemic, rare and threatened species of plants and animals.

The natural complex "Bikin River Valley", more than 1 million hectares in total, includes a landscape reserve Verhnebikinsky and the territory of traditional land use of the indigenous people of the north of the Primorsky Kray. "Central Sikhote Alin" property extension at the expense of the "Bikin River Valley" - an initiative of public organizations (WWF, Greenpeace Russia, the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, the Natural Heritage Protection Fund) supported by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation and associated with the upcoming "tiger summit" which is to be held in Primorye in the autumn of this year. The nomination is expected to be ready by the 30 of August present year and present during summit.

The "Bikin River Valley" have been already nominated for World Heritage status within the "Central Sikhote Alin" property and according to the decision of the 25th session of the World Heritage Committee (2001) met with the criterion x (contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity). In 2001 the inscription of the "Bikin River Valley" was deferred until disposing of some IUCN arguments concerning the management of protected areas in the "Bikin River Valley".