International leaders are hoping to see the number of wild tigers double by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger on the Chinese calendar.

The endangered animal has been reduced to a population of 3,200 worldwide, down from 100,000 a century ago, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

To reverse that trend, leaders from 13 countries, including Premier Wen Jiabao, attended the four-day International Forum on Tiger Conservation on Tuesday in St. Petersburg, the highest level meeting ever held to try to save the species.

Leaders at the meeting, which started on Nov 21, have agreed on a strategy to protect wild tigers and increase the species' population.

Wen urged the international community to join hands and crack down on poaching, the trade of tiger goods and smuggling.

The natural habitat of wild tigers is being "restored and improved" in China thanks to years of effort, he said.

The Chinese government is looking to strengthen efforts in wild tiger protection and cooperate with international organizations and other countries.

It will also improve the lives of people in areas where wild tigers roam, so the residents will voluntarily join protection efforts, he added.

James Leape, director general of WWF, told the conference that the species of wild tigers is on the brink of extinction.

"If we cannot succeed now, if current trends continue, by 2022 we will have only scattered remnants of the populations left," he said.

Earlier media reports said the meeting is expected to agree on a US$350-million program coordinated by the World Bank and WWF to double the tiger population by 2022.

China has historically been home to five subspecies of tigers, including Siberian tigers and South China tigers.

However, South China tigers have not been seen for three decades, while the number of Siberian tigers in the country has plummeted from 150 in the 1970s to about 20 nowadays, said Fan Zhiyong, director of the species program for WWF in Beijing.

The forest coverage and landscape in Northeast China has been improving, but there are not enough Siberian tigers in the area, Fan told China Daily.

Contrary to the situation in other countries that are experiencing a rapid decline in the number of wild tigers, Siberian tigers in Russia have increased from 40 to more than 400 in the past 50 years, he said.

But a long iron wire fence between Russia and China is blocking the free movement of Siberian tigers between the two countries.

"The purpose of the fence is to stop human smuggling. Tigers do not have nationalities, so we need to figure out a new way which can not only monitor human movement but also allow tigers' free movement," he said.

"As the number of tigers has already reached a high population density in Russia's far eastern region, there is a great potential for the two countries to cooperate and let tigers spread," he said.

(China Daily November 24, 2010)