Amur-Heilong Ecoregional Complex
The importance of the Amur River Basin is recognized by virtually all global assessment and listing systems. So far the basin has 15 Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance, 12 Man and Biosphere Reserves, the Sikhote-Alin World Heritage Site, and 75 Important Bird Areas.
The Amur Heilong area includes four WWF Global 200 priority ecoregions, including the Amur-Heilong Freshwater Ecoregion (listed as “Russian Far East Rivers and Wetlands”) and the Ussury Broadleaf and Mixed Forests Ecoregion(listed as “Russian Far East Temperate Forests”) both shared by Russia and China. The Daurian Steppe Ecoregion is shared by Mongolia, Russia and China and has special Dauria International Protected Area established by three basin countries. The Eastern Siberian Taiga Boreal Forest Ecoregion partly intrudes Amur-Heilong River Basin as well. And the Amur-Heilong River discharge greatly impacts another Global 200 marine ecoregion – Sea of Okhotsk.
The Amur-Heilong Freshwater Ecoregion supports the International Nature Reserve Khanka-Xingkai Lake, one of the Ramsar Sites and the largest protected area in the region
Global 200 Ecoregions of Amur-Heilong
© WWF
© Daurian Steppe - the largest remaining near natural temperate grassland of Eurasia © Vadim Kiriliuk
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (FEOW)
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (FEOW) is the first biogeograhpic regionalization of the Earth's freshwater biodiversity, and bringing together biodiversity and threat data for the resulting ecoregions.
Check on Amur River Basin Freshwater Ecoregions
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© Ussury temperate forests extremely rich in species © V.Solkin / WWF Russia