Temperate rainforests of the Russian Far East

The temperate rainforests of the Russian Far East are found within the Russian states of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovski Krai and contains the Sikhote-Alin mountain range. Found within the Russian Federation, this area is one of the most productive and diverse forests in the world and also contains one of the highest endangered species densities on Earth. While most temperate rainforests around the world have retained only a fraction of their historical range, these forests maintain the majority of their former range and almost all of their historical biodiversity. The region is also notable for having what has become the last remaining large tract of viable habitat for the critically endangered Amur tiger and Amur leopard.

The Russian Federation contains one sixth of the world’s land mass and around half of the country’s territory is what could be considered continuous wilderness, with large expanses of boreal forests providing relatively untouched habitat for an extremely wide diversity of species. The temperate rainforests are located at the intersection of the Pacific tectonic plate and the Eurasian continent’s plate in far southeastern Russia, forming an area with a unique set of characteristics seen no where else in the world. During the last glacial maximum, the area was not glaciated, allowing for the development of a complex ecosystem containing species with origins in Siberia’s boreal forest and Manchuria’s subtropical forests. Historically these forests ranged from the southeastern Pacific coast of Russia, North Korea, and into northern China, however large amounts of human development (in China especially) has limited the forest to its current range in the Russian Far East. In 2001, UNESCO recognized a 1.5 million hectare area of forest in the central part of the Sikhote-Alin mountains as a World Heritage Site in Russia, citing the area as one of the most unique and valuable areas of intact forest in the world

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