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The United Nations may allocate $7 million within a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) budget for an ecological preserve on the Amur River, Alexei Makhinov, second in charge of the Institute for Water and Ecological Problems of the Far Eastern Branch of Russia’s Academy of Sciences was cited by news reports as saying Wednesday.

On November 24 the international supervisory board including the experts for the UNEP project from Russia, China and Mongolia discussed in China’s city of Harbin major issues to be addressed within the project, named ‘Complex control in the Amur River basin’.

Among the project’s priorities, the Russian experts stressed the need to provide ecological security to Primorye’s residents by increasing the purity of Amur River water and its fish resources. The specialists also expressed the necessity to frequently exchange information gathered on the Amur River and its tributaries, Ria Novosti news agency reported.

Overall, Russian experts offered eight major ecological problems to be tackled within the project, Makhinov said. According to him, all of the suggested items were accepted by Chinese and Mongolian experts for consideration.

“Russia took the initiative at the meeting since the country’s Kabarovsky region is located at the river’s lower course and we experience in full the negative effects of its pollution,” the Kommersant cited the Head of the region’s Department of Natural Resources Sergei Andriyenko as saying.

To receive the money for the project, the three participating countries must conduct a cross-border analysis of the Amur River to receive the UN grant for the Amur clean-up.

At the next working session to be held in the Chinese town of Heihe in January 2007, the project participants will choose the ecological issues which will top the agenda. On the whole, the discussion of the project is expected to be completed by next September.

The Amur River is the world’s eighth longest river, with a length of over 4,400 kilometers. It flows across northeast Asia to the sea of Okhotsk forming the border between the Russian Far East and China.

The river, according to experts, has been suffering from rampant pollution for many years. Public attention to ecological problems on the Amur River was greatly increased last December, when it became contaminated by a toxic slick of chemicals which reached it from the Songhua River. The explosion at a petrochemical factory in the Chinese city of Jilin resulted in 100 tons of benzene spilling into the Songhua River.

The previous UNEP ecological projects implemented in the Far East are those in Primorye’s Khanka Lake and in Mongolia’s Daurian Steppe zone, which is part of the Amur River basin. The neighboring countries of Mongolia, Russia and China participated in both projects, which did not, however, receive wide attention.