Forest Club model projects and sites

Issue 8-9, Nov. 1998

The Priochotye region is about 42 million ha and is located on the northeast part of Chabarovskiy Kray. It borders on the north with Magadanskaya Oblast and on the west with Sacha Republic and Amurskaya Oblast. On the east in is conterminous to cold seas Ochotskoye and Shantarskoye.

The forests of the region are the bases of local ecosystem sustainability. But the predominance of coniferous forest crops, underbrush of dwarf siberian pine, large amount of inflammable substance, strong ground vegetation layer (dead-wood ets.), dry periods in spring and autumn, frequent thunders and permanent presence of tourists, local people, forest workers, hunters, geologists, placer miners, fishers make a complicated situation and contribute to fire risk not only in suburb and close to villages area but also in places difficult to access.

Since 1973 to 1996 there have been 456 fires on the area of 23.4 thousands ha. Some patches have been burned and have lost the capacity of self-recovering. Only for this 24 years there is no statistical data earlier 1973 nearly 300 000 m3 of timber have been burned on the stump. The total loss counted for the prices of past years is about 129.1 million rubles. But in the whole the wane is bigger including ecological loss and extra costs for forest restoration.

The statistics shows that fire in the forest appears mostly because of lightening. Regretfully the second place takes people. So since 1973 fire have been started 375 times because of lightening (82.3%), 81 times because of human activity, including 26 times because of placer miners, 3 times because of geologists, 3 times because of forestry workers and 50 times because of local people. The damage being done to the nature because of recreation, a plant gathering, fishing and hunting of local people is computed in ten million rubles.

Due to this fact leschos keeps fire preventing measures. There is experience in public awareness work for careful attitude towards forest and nature.

Our concept is approved by the Head of Tuguro-Chumikanskiy rajon administration on the territory of which the leschos is located. It is for a long period (up to 2001) and implies an active part of authorities, interested organizations, public because only that approach can guarantee concrete result.

The collective of Chumikanskij leschos does the main workload. It is necessary to take the audience into account because the form in which the material should be presented depends on the population group we are working with. Approximately there are the following characteristics of the audience division:

• age (preschool, school, adult);

• living place (population of rayon town, small taiga village, meteostation, boat station, line control communication unit, geologist or placer-miner base);

• profession and occupation (loggers, fishers, hunters, tourists).

All the work is differentiated considering these divisions. Distant (published material) and contact (lectures, special lessons in schools, clubs etc.)

Forming public awareness is a long and complex process. That's why we begin from younger audience, preschool and school. We cooperate with teachers, ecology specialists, and other ecological organization workers. School forest districts proved to be one of the most effective ways and we are working now for organizing such district and “blue patrol”. We plan other game and competition forms of education: teaching through play to behave in forest, competition of compositions, drawings, posters, and then a rally on the rayon level.

When working with adults we distinguish two categories: disciplined and undisciplined. The first group can percept a new information and corrects their behavior. The second group is more difficult. These people can kindle a fire without keeping safety regulations, leave it without choking. When working with such audience we use exhibitive forms, use examples of negative attitude to nature and show the results of it as countable damage.

The system involves large amount of participants. It has a coordination center – Public Council for orientation the population towards careful attitude towards the forest. Its members are representatives of rayon authorities, nature conservation organizations, newspaper “Sovetskij Sever”. The concept involves a plan for preventive work for public awareness, with posters, placards and panels in frequently attended places, making and passing leaflets concerning preservation of northern forests, organizing recreation places, conducting lectures and talking in schools and in working places, conducting spring and autumn clean burns, revision of felling areas, patrolling in the aerial and ground forest protecting areas, making fire suppressing scarification lines, sanitary felling. All these measures have lead to successive results. The rate of fire sets have decreased for the last five years and is more than 62.5% lower than in the previous year. The damage had lowered on 43,7%.