The Fourth Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on January 21. It is an important event for reviewing progress on the Global Tiger Recovery Programme and commitments to tiger conservation. Thirteen countries, including China, Russia and Malaysia, have collectively pledged to ensure the protection of wild tigers and their habitats.

The conference adopted Kuala Lumpur Joint Statement on Tiger Conservation, which proposes 15 conservation measures, such as protecting tiger habitats and their ecological chains and preventing their degradation, mainstreaming the construction of ecological corridors into land-use policies, and conducting regular national monitoring and assessment of tigers, preys and their habitats.

In the last century, tiger populations declined dramatically, from 100,000 to as few as 3,200 in the wild by 2010, according to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Faced with this challenge, tiger range countries took a stand and set an ambitious species conservation goal at the St Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010: double the number of wild tigers by 2022.

By April 2016, the global wild tiger population had reached 3,890.

China has always actively supported and implemented global tiger protection actions. 

On October 12, 2021, the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park was officially established. By October 2021, the number of wild Siberian tigers had increased to 50 from 27 at the beginning of the pilot program in 2017, according to data from the park's management bureau.

China will continue to promote the development of a system of protected natural areas, protect, expand and optimize the habitats of wild tigers, strengthen patrol and monitoring of their active areas, and establish ecological corridors to eventually realize the recovery of tiger populations, according to China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration. In addition, China will strengthen cooperation with tiger range countries and conservation organizations, share experience and lessons learned in conservation, strengthen law enforcement, communication and coordination, crack down on crimes, and take measures to properly deal with conflicts between humans and tigers, it said.

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