FOREST USE - Description
Alexander Isaev and Anatoli Shvidenko

Forestry is a type of human activity that includes all aspects of interrelations between humans and the forest. The major interests of forestry are: studying and inventorying forests; forest reproduction; fire and pest control; forest exploitation; and control over forest exploitation. A specific feature of forestry is a long production cycle (more than 100 years) that is largely determined by the growth of the forest type. Forestry in Russia has been based on the principles of stability and sustainability. There are about 20 general criteria for sustainable forest exploitation. The major ones are: (1) maintenance of productivity; (2) maintenance of appropriate sanitary conditions; (3) maintenance of the protective functions; (4) biodiversity conservation and maintenance of forests in the global carbon cycle; (5) maintenance of social and economic importance; and (6) availability of legislative instruments for forest conservation and sustainable forest management.

Forestry is regulated by the "Forest Code of the Russian Federation" (approved in 1997), forest codes of subjects of the Russian Federation, and other legislative and technical documents. The forest reserve (forested and unforested lands, excluding special-purpose areas and local areas of habitation) is the object of forestry. Forests of the country are held as Federal property according to the Forest Code. However, the legislation does provide an opportunity to transfer a part of the forest reserve to ownership of subjects of the Russian Federation. Forest management is to a greater extent concentrated at a regional level. The major unit of forestry management in Russia is a regional unit - leskhozes (about 8,000 exist) that in its turn is subdivided into forest districts - lesnichestvos (there are about 8,000). During the past decade, the total number of the employees in this sphere has been about 200,000 (60% of them, state forest guard).

The system of forest works in Russia includes forest management and the inventory of forests by means of remote sensing, monitoring, and various types of investigations (e.g., forest-pathological investigation). Forest management includes periodical inventory of forests (at intervals of 10-15 years) and development of long-term plans of harmonious forest exploitation for regional forest units. Inventory of forests by means of remote sensing is performed in distant sparsely populated regions. Forest areas covered by the inventory have decreased sharply; they made up 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 hectares (ha) annually during the past decade.

The objectives of monitoring are the situation tracking of the forest status and tendencies of forest development, the prevention of and control over natural and man-induced disturbances in the forests, and the elimination of the consequences. There are fire, forest-pathology, and other kinds of monitoring. There are 44 forest expeditions belonging to 13 state forest management enterprises which perform inventory of the forests (data are as of 1998). The first pan-Russian inventory of forests was made in 1957. Data on the state of all forests in Russia are presented in the materials of the State Inventory of the Forest Reserve that was performed each 5 years over 1961-1998.

Multi-purpose forest exploitation includes complex utilization of all forest resources and numerous environmental and social utilities of forests. Use of forest resources includes the harvesting of timber, galipot, auxiliary wood, medicinal raw materials, wild fruits, nuts, mushrooms, berries and also side utilities such as hay making and hunting. Timber is harvested by means of final felling (felling of the mature forest, about 85% of total volume of the harvested timber) and intermediate felling (thinning and sanitary felling). Final felling is performed only in the forests under exploitation. The quota of the sustainable final felling is set on the basis of the annual cut that, in turn, is determined by dominating species within the regional forestry unit. Over the past years, the annual cut has slightly exceeded 500,000,000 cubic meters (m3)/year (544.6 million m3/year in 1999 including 309.7 million m3/year of coniferous tree species). Actual felling made up about 300 to 350 million m3/year of saleable wood in the 1970s to 80s. In the past decade, only 20% to 30% of the annual cut has been used (121.6 million m3 in 1999) because of economic crises. This fact caused great social and economic problems, especially in the regions, where forestry was a major sector of employment. Thinning is of the greatest importance. In 1988, thinning was performed in an area of 1,270,000 ha. In 1997, this operation covered only 610,000 ha.

There are great prospects for harvesting the nonwood resources. About 2,500 of the more than 20,000 vascular plants growing in Russia are of medicinal importance, and about 300 of them are included in the state pharmacopoeia. The potential reserve of food is in the range of hundreds of thousands of tons. However, currently an insignificant part of these reserves is used. In 1998, forestry enterprises harvested 16.8 million tons (t) of wild fruits and berries, 1,800 t of mushrooms, 2,600 t of medicinal herbs, and 7,000 t of honey. In years past, the volumes of these products have been reduced by three to ten times and even more in some cases. At the same time, actual volumes harvested by the local population have increased, especially in the distant forest regions, where these resources are of survival importance.

Afforestation on the deforested areas (fire sites, cleared spaces, etc.) is one of the most important objectives of forestry. Afforestation can be natural, through seeds and springwood. The intensity of natural afforestation depends on the specific region, forest type, causes and areas of disturbances, availability of seed sources, and ecological features of the tree species. In the forest zone, especially in taiga, natural afforestation is completed successfully, although this process can be accompanied by an undesirable change in tree composition. For example, such pioneer species as birch and aspen can move into the burnt-out or felled areas that had been primarily occupied by dark coniferous tree species. Forestry has worked out a considerable number of procedures to further natural afforestation.

It is of the greatest importance to conserve the young forest generation, i.e., the undergrowth, when cutting the mature standing trees. This can be achieved through the implementation of special kinds of cuttings (selective or gradual) or progressive technologies that conserve undergrowth under final cutting. Southward, in the forest-steppe and semi-desert zones, natural afforestation usually does not take place. Man-planted forests are required in that case. Forest plantations are formed mainly by means of seedlings.

In 1960-1990, afforestation was performed in Russia within an area of 1.6 to 1.8 million ha, including sowing and planting of forests within 600,000 to 700,000 ha. The quality and integrity of the plantations were not always satisfactory. In 1998, only 15.36 million ha of the forest plantations were maintained. In addition to afforestation, forest planting on barren lands and lands of low productivity beyond the area of the forest reserve was performed within an area of about 100,000 ha, mainly with a view to protecting agricultural lands. In the past years, areas of afforestation and forest planting have decreased significantly. For example, in 1996-1997, these operations were performed annually within an area of 1,100,000, ha including annual sowing and planting of the forest crops within the area of not less than 300,000 ha.

Forest fire control and forest management control are losing ground. In 1988, 1,910 km of forest roads were built; in 1997, this number was only 0.480 km. The scope of irrigation and drainage construction was reduced by ten times and the planting of forest shelter belts on agricultural lands decreased by four times over the same period. The number of aircraft used for forest protection decreased from 598 in 1988 to 378 in 1997, and the number of flying hours shrank by 5.4 times over this period.

Bibliography

Forest Legislation of Russian Federation: Book of Standard and Legal Acts. 1998. Federal'naya sluzhba lesnogo khoziaystva Rossii, Moscow, 576 pp. [In Russian]

Isaev, A.S. (ed.). 1991. Forestry Before the 21st Century. Ecologiya, Moscow, 332 pp. [In Russian]

Burdin, N.A, V.M. Shlykov, V.A. Yegornov, and V.V. Sakhanov. 2000. Timber Industry System. Moscow, 473 pp.

Gusev I.I. (ed.). 1998. History of Russian Forest Management. Federal'naya sluzhba lesnogo khoziaystva Rossii, Moscow, 329 pp. [In Russian]

Bicentenary of Forest Department (1798-1998). 1998. Vol. 2 (1898-1998). Federal'naya sluzhba lesnogo khoziaystva Rossii, Moscow, 243 pp. [In Russian]

Petrov A.P., B.M. Mamayev, V.K. Tepliakov, and Ye.A. Shchetinskiy. 1997. State Management of Forest Economy. Federal'naya sluzhba lesnogo khoziaystva Rossii, Moscow, 297 pp. [In Russian]

Forest Industry

The forest industry description is the result of the data collection activities of the IIASA Russian Forest Study in cooperation with the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Novosibirsk. The data collection covered in the first round included 850 and 130 forest industry enterprises in the first and second rounds respectively. In addition to this, Youri Blam delivered the Russian Database, which has also been included in the database.
The general content of the forest industry description includes the following data items:

- Identification
- Harvesting
- Production facilities
- Industrial production
- Costs

Forest fires
Georgi Korovin

Fire remains one of the dominating forces determining tree species composition, age structure, and dynamics in boreal forests. Uncontrolled fires have a destructive impact on forest vegetation and fauna; they damage the soil, effect erosion, and pollute the atmosphere with combustion products. Fire used purposefully represents a useful tool for solving numerous forestry tasks, including the control of undesirable vegetation, the promoton of natural regeneration, and the regulation of stocks of forest combustible materials. The ecological role of the fire is complex, and its full exclusion from forest life is impossible and inexpedient. Therefore, it is urgent that an effective system of management by forest fires should be created. According to statistical reports for the period from 1976 to 2000, 11,800 to 36,600 forest fires are recorded each year on an area from 235,000 to 5,340,000 hectares (ha) within the protected territory of the Russian Federation Forest Fund. At the same time, the area of forestlands annually attacked by fire varies from 170,000 to 4,290,000 ha. Crown fires, which result in practically full death of stock, exert the most damage to forest resources. Fires of this type represent from 7.0% to 23% of the total area of forest fund annually attacked by fire. The ground fires are the most widespread, effecting a stock damage of a different intensity. Ground fires represent from 70% to 90% of the annually burning areas. Soil fires are the least spread, but they are the most destructive. Their share is not more than 0.5% of the forest fund area annually attacked by fire.

Most forest fires (more than 85%) are caused by people. The share of natural sources (thunderstorm discharges) makes up about 12% of the total number and 42.0% of the total area of fires. Forest fires of anthropogenic origin make up 77.0% of the forest fires in the Asian part of the country and about 93.0% in the European part.

The spatial structure of forest fires can be described as high fire frequency and small fire areas in the European part of the country and as small fire frequency and extensive fire areas in the Asian part of Russia. Annually, from 24.4% to 66.2% of all appearing fires are recorded, as is from 0.4% to 13.2% of the total area burned by fire in the European part of the Russian Federation. Similarly, for the Asian part,: from 33.8% to 75.8% of the total number of fires are recorded, as is from 86.8% to 99.6% of the total forest burned by fire.

The northern regions of Siberia and the Far East, which account for about a third of the total forest fund area, are in unprotected territory, where fires are neither recorded and nor evolved into statistical materials. Forest fires in these regions are indirectly estimated through state forest inventory data, which include information about burnt areas in all forestry farms and in the subjects of the Russian Federation. By 01.01.1998, Russia's forest fund included 23.2 million ha of burnt area, and practically half of this area was located within unprotected territory. The share of burnt areas within these territories having delicate ecosystems is twice as high as its corresponding parameter within protected territory. Thus, the ramifications for environmental recovery are serious.

The lack of a regular accounting of forest fires within unprotected territories and insufficient instrumental control of fire areas within protected territories make an integrated system of forest fire monitoring imperative. To begin with, it is necessary to develop its space component, and to provide the possibility of recording and mapping the large fires over the whole territory of the forest fund.

The database on forest fires contains three files characterizing spatial distribution of fires, burned area, and burnt forest areas. The first file contains the coordinates of squares making up a 1oX1o grid. The grid portrays the frequency of fire appearing (average annual fire number per 1 million ha) within each square. The annual number of fires within the air protection zone was taken from a data bank on forest fires for the period of 1987-2000; the ground protection zone data came from forest fire statistics (5-lh form) for the same time period.

The second file includes the coordinates of the same grid squares and the percent of forestlands annually attacked by fire within these squares. The area annually consumed by fire was taken from the same sources as were the data for fire number, and the area of forestlands was taken from the data of the last state forest inventory (01.01.1998).

The third file contains the square coordinates and the corresponding shares of burnt forests within the forest fund, detected through the state forest inventory data.

Bibliography

Recommendations on Fire Prevention in Forests and Regulations for Work of Forest Fire Services. 1997. Approved by the Deputy Leader of the Federal Forestry Service of Russia. 17.11.1997. Federal Forest Service, Moscow. [In Russian]

Status of the Order for Attributing of the Territory to Protection Zones and Areas Including Forest Fund Lands of Russian Federation and Territories Beyond the Forest Fund. 1997. Approved by the Deputy Leader of Federal Forestry Service of Russia. 19.09.1997. Federal Forest Service, Moscow [In Russian]

The Forest Fund of Russia (Data of the State Forest Fund Inventory According to the State by 1.01.1998). 1999. All-Union Scientific Research Center "Lesresurs", Moscow, 649 pp. [In Russian]

Korovin G.N., S.A. Bartalev, and A.I. Belyaev. 1998. Integrated system of forest fire monitoring. "Leshoye khozyajstvo" Magazine 4:45-48. [In Russian]

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