Forest Club model projects and sites

Issue 11, Aug. 1999

Village Varnevo destroyed by the flood Photo by A. Lysenko

It happened in autumn of 1998. More than 200 human settlements and 40,000 people found themselves in the disaster area within twelve hours. 17 people died and one person was missing. More than two and a half thousand apartment houses were destroyed, more than 3,000 demanded major repairs. The mudflow took lives of four people in the village of Russkaya Mokra.

About 10,000 people and several thousand units of machinery were sent for fighting the disaster and its consequences. Aviators landed masterly on very difficult places – river drifts and shoals, they rescued 114 people from the destroyed houses.

However, there is still much unclear in the tragedy in the Transcarpathian region. The reasons (or their complex) have not been established yet. In order to understand them, it is necessary to address the history of the region.

Green Carpahians seemed to remain untouched longer than any other forests in Europe. One of the first mentions of those unique forests is found in the Polish annals of the sixteenth century. Researchers believe that men started to invade forests in the upper reaches of the River Tisa in the Bronze Age. During feudalism, yew was mainly cut down – it is a mahogany tree, which is extremely solid, rottenness resistant and characterized with very slow growth. Soon yews became rare. In the 17th century they started to fell other trees as well, and the timber was rafted along the rivers. Even larger forest felling operations began after the rail-road Lvov-Budapest-Wienna was built in 1860, which went through the Carpathians. As a result, first windbreaks and floods fell upon the Carpathian region in the middle of the 19th century. Since then, they occur every 20 years in average.

Nevertheless, since Austro-Hungarian sovereignty (Queen Maria-Teresa issued the first Forestry law in 1769) as well as during being a dominion of Poland and Czechoslovakia, relatively reasonable policy was put into practice in the Transcarpathian region. The system of forestry management was developed, strict forestry laws were issued, valuable isolated terrain forests were investigated and entailed forest reserve status. In addition to state, private and church forests there were also urbarial forests, which belonged to communities and settlements. In some of them foresters even prohibited local people to collect brushwood, mushrooms and berries. Timber was converted carefully and in small amounts, less than annually prescribed. As an erosion-preventive measure, trees were cut only in winter, and then new trees were obligatory planted. Nobody could appear with an axe in hands on top of mountains or steep and rocky slopes.

Decay more!

The Carpathian forest was transformed into a huge felling site in the USSR. A decree "On cutting stock for the year of 1944" was issued in 1944. It allowed to cut down unique forests up to 2 million cubic meters of timber. To fell over and above the plan became an unwritten "forestry law". According to some data, 100 million cubic meters were cut over the prescribed annual yield only since 1944 till 1963.

First soviet forestry management system was introduced in Carpathians in 1950-52. Vast areas on steep and rocky slopes as well as along the rivers were enrolled in exploitation group II. Beech was cut down in summer, not in winter, which provoked erosion. Less valuable spruce was planted instead of beech and less than it was cut. During post-war years the forest was cut down on the area of 279,4 thousand ha whereas only 186,6 thousand ha was forested again.

There was one more problem in the Carpathian forests. Much timber was left in the forest to decay. 650 cubic meters of first-class timber were left in Vushkovskiy district, 1850 – in Zhab'evskiy district in 1951. However, those facts did not bother Kiev. In 1952 Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party (CC UCP) and Council of Ministers of the Ukraine issued joint closed resolution "On unsatisfactory felling rate at IY quarter of 1952 at the enterprises of the Ministry of timber industry of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)". However, there could be another solution of the problem instead of increasing felling operations, they could press for complete removal of cut timber. 160 thousand cubic meters of timber decayed in the Carpathians in 1953.

In winter of 1955, Central Committee of Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and Council of Ministers of the USSR issued one of the most anti-environmental, anti-forest resolutions in soviet period: "About increase of forest felling in central, southern and western districts and improvement of forest management in the USSR". The resolution, which was signed by Khruschev and Bulganin, was doubled by CC UCP and Council of Ministers of the Ukraine in two months – in April with the resolution "About the amount of forest felling in 1956-60 and improvement of forest management in the Ukrainian (SSR). According to the resolution, advanced cutting at 30% (in fact it was larger) was officially allowed. Industrial felling operations were allowed in the forests of Group I.

The commission consisting of experts of Agricultural department of CC UCP and forestry specialists visited the Carpathians and reported the following to Secretary of CC UCP A. Kirichenko: "As a rule, loggers refused to fell trees in forests which were far from lumber roads and floatable rivers. They demanded to allocate felling sites near existing roads, and local administrative and Communist party bodies made logging enterprises meet loggers' demands. That led to complete noncompliance with felling rules and cuttings on steep and rocky slopes, as well as concentration of clearings on vast areas." Felling operations took place even in former Polish-Czech forest refuges which were of great scientific and esthetical value of European importance. The authors of the report continued: "excessive felling in Ukrainian Carpathians made up to 17.3 of prescribed cut last 10 years. Forest was cut down 22 years henceforward in Drogobuchskaya region and 11 years – in Chernovitskaya. On average, forest was cut down in 1956 year against 1974".

At the same time more than 600 thousand of cubic meters of timber decayed since 1948 to 1955. On average up to 30 per cent of cut timber was thrown away annually in the Soviet Carpathians. It seemed more profitable to leave timber to decay than to remove it.

Nowadays it is difficult to establish actual timber demand for the economy of USSR in 50-s as well as for the use in Ukraine. For instance, more than 3 million cubic meters of timber was cut down in Stanislavsky region in the middle of 50-s. Most of it was exported; however, at the same time, timber was imported from Karelian-Finnish republic, Archangelsk and Leningrad regions and even from Khavarovsk Territory (!).

Nowadays, "new wave" of forest felling is coming, which we can stop. According to Ukrainian news agency "beech forests are being cut down day and night. People sell raw material for peanuts in order to get food for their families."

Forest took revenge on men

Ruinous bridge near the town of Khust. Photo by A. Lysenko

Uncontrolled felling promoted floods. Diana Perilo, an inhabitant of the Sasovo village in Vinogradovsky district told: "Our village watched water-level the whole day. It had quickly risen in the morning and began to drop in the afternoon. We calmed down, felt happy and went home to sleep. My relative rushed into my house about midnight crying "Water is in houses!". I just had time to dress my tree-year-old daughter and myself and got out of the house. In the street we saw water, which was as still as glass. The moon and stars reflected in the water. First we were not afraid, we scared when the houses began to break down, when the water rose too high."

Villagers from Rysskaya Mokra settlement said: "a lot of businessmen came recently, they were felling forests throughout. Look around, you will see only naked fields where forests were. They care only for dollars, not for people…"

The world learned about the tragedy in the village only after seven days. People had been digging out their relatives themselves the whole week after the flood. They lost any hope of help. There are several outstanding reasons, which explain such unprecedented flood destructiveness: excessive precipitation, neglected flood protection works and vast felling.

Floods in the beginning of winter are not unusual for the Transcarpathian region. At this time of the year warm air masses come to the region from the Central Danube plain. Storm rainfalls and thaws promoting floods, mudflows and landslides are caused by warm fronts. Several great floods were recorded in the Tisa river basin in the XX century. 17 people died and 4 thousand houses were destroyed as the result of the flood in 1992.

Scientists think that recurrence of natural disasters in this region every 4-7 years is connected with solar activity. It is easy to forecast that the flood will recur in 2002-2004.

Storm rainfalls is the main but not the only reason of floods in the Transcarpathian region. Rainfall overflowing mountain streams promotes mudflows hazard. Water, saturated with particles, transforms into a sediment flow, its velocity increases and correspondingly its destructive strength increases too. Mudflows can occur in all mountain streams and rivers in the Carpathians. Potential mudflow danger increases with environmental deterioration of river beds and watersheds. There was a case when builders forgot to remove a pier in an inflow of the Black Tisa river. The pier blocked the river bed and formed a dam during the flood of 1992. Then the stream which broke the dam destroyed a house.

Most channels of small rivers were exposed to anthropogenic impact. Traces of skidding were registered in every third stream in the upper reaches of the rivers Black Tisa, White Tisa, Teresva, Terebly and Reky.

During storm rainfalls the water does not soak into soil, it forms puddles on the plain and runoffs down slopes in mountains. Forest is a natural runoff speed controller. Research showed that slowest runoff is registered in mature deciduous forests, it is twice faster in coniferous forests, and 100 times faster in cleared areas. That proves connection between floods and deforestation.

"Chaotic felling which is typical for the Transcarpathian region today is a trigger to the tragedy. It should be stopped or it will lead to the next natural disaster", - said F. Tyutyunik, senior lecturer of the Department of physical geography and geoecology at Kiev University. According to F. Tyutyunik, main reasons of the disaster in 1998 were precipitation and landscape yielding. The other reason was incorrect so-called "geometric" planning. Ploughed fields should be laid out across highlands, not in concordance with a square or a rectangle. Forestation can stop soil erosion; however, it is impossible under current conditions: ploughed fields, pastures and hayfields should be in all native zones. That is why correct, considered planning plays such an important role in preventing soil erosion. F. Tyutyunik added that "areas round rivers should not be plowed up. However, that took place in the Carpathians."

Besides environmental reasons of the Carpathian tragedy, there were economic reasons as well. Economic difficulties in Ukraine resulted in partial performance of the Council of Ministers' Resolution about engineering protection of areas and facilities, prevention measures of natural and man-caused disasters, as well as monitoring of similar processes.

There is no doubt that such processes should be monitored and forecasted. Complex Program of flood control measures in Transcarpathian region made provision for construction of 200 km of check dams and 51 km of river bank fortification, management of stream channels till 2000. Due to financial reasons the program has not be fulfilled even at 50%.

The Speaker of Parliament Alexander Tkachenko spoke negatively of uncertain position of Ukranian State Forest Committee in this case and charged the Committee with preparation of documents on economic situation in logging enterprises which operate in the Carpathians nowadays.