The Russian vice Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Igor Maidanov, during a visit to Iran signed a document which "is regulating the cooperation between the two countries to preserve the biodiversity and to develop the protected natural territories. The parties have signed the agreement during a meeting in Teheran (on the 29th of December of 2009) between the Russian vice Minister of the Resources, Igor Maidanov, and the Deputy Director of the Iranian Organization for the environment, G. B. Saduk".
This document disciplines the cooperation between the two countries "in the field of biodiversity conservation, development of particularly protected natural zones and Convention of Teheran". Iranians and Russians also examined the practical aspects of the programme of reintroduction of the Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in the Western Caucasus.
The programme, which started during September of 2009, aims to restore the population of these extremely rare felines, which are at risk of extinction, in the Russian part of the Caucasus, restoring the presence of the leopards in their ancient areal.
In September Maidanov asked the Iranian Ambassador in Moscow, Mamud Reza Sajjadi, if Iran could give some Persian leopards to reintroduce them in the Caucasus. This request concerns at least two female specimens so that they mate with the two males which were given to Russia from Turkmenistan and that are housed in a reserve near Sochi.
The leopard project was wanted directly from Vladimir Putin as a demonstration of environmental commitment on the occasion of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi. Putin, who has a penchant for large carnivores, went to the city on the shores of the Black Sea to personally welcome the Turkmenain leopards.
Iran is one of the last shelters of Persian leopards, which once populated all the forests and mountains of the Caucasus and central Asia, Small populations of these leopards resist also in Armenia, Georgia and Turkmenistan.
