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LIVING WITH TAIGA: TRN conference chronicles
"The Russian forest sector is a Titanic sinking to the bottom with
millions of tons of lumber and a system of governance that took decades to
form," said Aleksei Grigoriev at the opening session of the Fifth
International Conference of the Taiga Rescue Network (TRN), "Living with the
Taiga: Boreal Forests in the 21st Century." The conference, which is being
held in the Moscow suburb of Zvenigorod between September 18-22, focuses on
the most troublesome social aspects of the coexistence of humanity and the
taiga that worry world community.
The conference has gathered more than 250 people from various countries,
from environmental activists to scientists to tribal leaders. The general
concern that unites most of them is preserving boreal forests in the
presence of human activity, the source of life of their children and
grandchildren.
In recent years, forests have become an object of attention not just for
biologists and foresters. After all, the forest is resource that could save
the earth from the global warming and climate change. It is forests that
absorb carbon dioxide gas, which is the basic cause of Greenhouse effect.
"We want to prove that people can gain not only from destroying the
forest. More specifically, that gain is not measured only in money, but in
everything that we receive from the forest, including clean air and water.
We searched for positive examples of how to rationally carry out sustainable
forestry, and found them here, in Russia," said Dmitri Akesnov, one of the
organizers of the conference and a member of the Forest Team of the
Social-Ecological Union.
According to the organizers, putting together a completely optimistic
conference was impossible. With the liquidation of the nature protection
structures in Russia-including the Federal Forest Service (FFS)-hopes for
the definite introduction of ecologically sound forest use have almost
completely disappeared.
The causes of the ruthless destruction of forests vary from uncontrolled
cuttings by corporations for enormous profits to the selective sanitary
cuttings foresters conduct due to the poeverty and disorganization of
forestry in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. The one result? The forest is
diappearing.
Russia already lost practically all of the oak stands in European Russia,
while the unique Ussuriskaya taiga and the relatively undisturbed forests of
the north are under the threat of extinction.
This is the reason why greens (and no longer only greens!) are sounding
the alarm. Today there are various reforestation programs, but forests grow
slowly and do not replace the things that disappear with that which is
called the real taiga-the trees that are hundreds of years old, the unique
flowers, grasses, and animals-that community that arose over the ages.
"Sure, we manage to win official protection for certain territories.
Alone, however, protection will not save. Everything that happens around the
forest is likewise very important to the forest itself and its inhabitants.
That's what ecology is: everything is tied to everything," say the
conference attenders.
In the meantime, the majority of Russian foresters cannot see the forest
for the trees, looking at it simply as a pile of timber. It looks as though
those who will represent the former forest league in the Ministry of Natural
Resources (MNR) and answer for the protection of the Russian forest worry
only about how to cut it down faster so as not to "lose a potential
resource." Though the representatives of the Forest Service used to offer to
at least outward signs of respect, offical representatives of the
"reconstructed" MNR have completely ignored today's international
conference. Four years ago, when the same conference was held in the Finnish
border town of Kuusamo, official foresters still came and actively
participated in the discussion, even as the scandal around the Karelian
forests became increasingly tense.
The annual TRN conference is a marker, and looking back at each one, it
becomes clear how much the Russian and international greens have managed to
accomplish through their joint efforts. A row of unique forested lands in
Karelia are now protected. It is now possible to teach forest giants, such
as ENSO-Stora and UPM Kummene to carry on a dialogue with society and fulfil
society's demands. The concept of "old growth forests" - that is those that
were not planted by people and which are extremely valuable for several
reasons -is now respected. Earlier, forestry workers would act as though
they did not understand at all.
HORRORS IN MOSCOW REGIONAL FORESTS
September 18, 2000
TRN conference program provided participants with opportunity to visit
"traditional Russian" forest logging sites. One of those we saw was a place
invaded by the ambrosia beetle. It looked like it was a main excuse for
clear cutting. Russian forest enterprises seem to benefit from this small
insect which might just eat most of the coniferous forest of huge Moscow
region.
These sanitary logging activities greens call "sanitary-monetary".
Financial management is undoubtedly very good but sustainable forest
management is still a new term for the most the Russian loggers. On the site
that we visited sick and wick spruces with thousands of beetles under their
bark laid right next to healthy ones. A part of timber was already
transported to processing facilities or which was more likely according to
SEU Forest campaigners, had been sold out.
On the other plots that were not far from this all the heavily sick stood
untouched. No one cared about a real danger they might have caused to many
trees around as the ambrosia beetle population grew very fast.
Our second trip was dedicated to the 1998-year hurricane impact to Moscow
regional forests.
The picture we saw had already deserved to be included into any horror
movie about the planet's future. Huge piles of dying and dead trees fell on
the ground two years ago and left "as is" that was what one could see in 50
kilometers from Moscow city. Those trees are not just comfortable homes for
different tree parasites they also do cause danger for nearby villages. In
summer a dry tree might easily flame up and fire will get on people's
houses. Forest managers undertook some efforts to provide reforestation
there but all the seedlings we saw were almost dead at the moment.
Recent abolition of the State Forest Service and State Environmental
Committee in Russia make domestic ecologists to become even more pessimistic
about the future of the Russian forests. National forests have been
officially called "timber resource" and nothing more but this by the new
minister of nature resources. Assuming the fact that a new "all-Russian
nature manager" used to be a supervisor of President Putin dissertation
which was dedicated to resource policy of Russia, new "resource extraction
policy" was not a ministerial lobbying efforts but an official national
platform.
MUSHROOMS AND BERRIES TO COMPETE TIMBER HARVESTING?
(Russian non-timber forest products trade fair at the TRN conference)
September 19, 2000
Forest is not just a timber source - this idea has been gradually coming
to businessmen's mind.
And it became even clearer for those who attended a workshop and an
exhibition of Russian non-timber products at TRN conference. Producers
brought samples of goods from Siberia, Far East, Tuva and other regions
there. Variety of products was really impressive. According to independent
experts everything from sweets to handicrafts was of good quality but most
of the products were still unfamiliar to the most of the western people who
were not experienced in non-timber forest culture. Luke Dushesne from
Canadian Forest Service said that most of the products might have a great
demand in western countries, they should be promoted wider among different
consumers. A diversity of non-timber products is an opportunity for
scientists to develop new technologies in food processing, medicine,
cosmetology, etc. Non-timber forest use is a chance for many far distant
Russian regions to develop stable local economies. It would also fit in
sustainable forest management concept.
"We still do not consider non-timber production as an alternative for
forest logging now. It is a very good economical opportunity which might be
capable even to compete with timber harvesting in the future" - said
Vladimir Zakharov, SEU forest campaigner.
"I appreciate the fact that here we are presenting not raw materials but
goods for consumers. And the quality of the products can compete with
western one. And maybe even better because we don't use artificial
ingredients, all the composition comes from nature, - stressed Gennadiy
Devyatkin, Director of The Khakasskiy Nature Reserve.
FOREST - IS IT A PRODUCT OR A PART OF AN ENVIRONMENT
Tourism and forest as a place to live - called one of working groups at
the conference
A question to cut or not to cut always has one answer in Russia. Logging
is the only chance to survive for local people - this what forest service,
authorities and TNCs usually say. According to environmentalists ecological
tourism and non-timber might be a source of income for local people but it
takes a lot of time to put all this into life.
Ecological tourism in Russia is being developed now only in some protected
areas like nature reserves, national parks and refuges, with a help of
public organizations. And it is very expensive, one is to pay a lot for such
an experience, so only foreigners can afford it now.
It has being still an argument among specialists if it is good or bad for
strictly protected areas to have people coming. The main question now is how
to safe non-protected but valuable areas from logging, if ecotourism is an
alternative to unsustainable forest management we use to have in Russia.
But if local people are not willing to keep their homelands beautiful for
themselves they won't keep it for visitors and there will be no way to
introduce sustainable nature management. But according to the results of
public poll for example in Altay region most of its population is
interested in non-industrial development of their place that is one of the
most wonderful area in the world. Estonian (Baltic States) participants of
the working group described their experience in sustainable nature
management promotion. They launched a project "Decentralized city" one of
its goals is to introduce a fashion of living in rural areas. And much
attention is paid to ecological life-style.
From the ecologists' point of view a house should become a part of ecosystem not destroying it. And at the same time the quality of life is not supposed
to get lost. One of the programs of SEU "Ecosettlements of XXI century" is
widely promoting this idea.
CERTIFICATION - NO WAY BACK
September 20, 2000
Almost the whole day was dedicated to forest certification issues.
Different stakeholders of the process participated in the discussion of FSC
status in Russia. Certification is an urgent issue in the country because
many producers here start cooperating with western partners who prefer to
work with certified timber. NGOs and consumers trust FSC system more than
other systems.
Of course almost all the FSC criteria are to be adjusted to Russian
reality. Producers should meet not just ecological but also social
requirements. One of the most important one is to provide local population
with work and not to hire foreign loggers.
By now certification is a deal for just a few best producers. It looks
like others are waiting for someone to force them out of the civilized
market that won't accept "wild" partners.
BIG INVESTMENTS - BIG TROUBLES
Foreign investment to Russian forest sector didn't bring any good - this
was a conclusion of another workshop of the conference, focused on the
investments. Russian Far East is logging activities are provided and paid by
international companies but no one cares about forest use legality and
sustainability. According to SEU experts 50 per cent of timber that Russia
sells to Northern China comes from illegal plots or companies.
American wood processors become more active on Russian market.
Russian-American Association of timber producers has been created this year.
The association suggests its own certification system. NGOs have not been
invited to participate in criteria development; information on its
activities is unavailable for public. Russian ecologists insisted on meeting
with Association representatives. It is supposed to take place this autumn.
A dialogue between NGOs and foreign companies operating in Russia usually
helps to provide more socially, ecologically and economically sound forest
management. Foreign partners don't want to be internationally known as
double standard Company that doesn't care about nature and citizens' rights.
Regional Russian authorities are often against of such a dialogue, they
prefer to work quietly without providing any information to public as it
happens in Karla and other forest hot spots. One of the ways to escape such
a situation is to create public watch bodies - suggested Alexey Yaroshenko,
Greenpeace Russia.
Another important event of the conference was the election of a new
Chairman of TRN coordination body - International Reference Group (IRG).
Michael Karpachevskiy Forest campaigner of The Biodiversity Conservation
Center, Russia became a new chairman of IRG.
LACK OF CONTROL IS WHAT SOME INSTITUTIONS BENEFIT FROM
New fight for Russian forests
After the TRN conference SEU Forest campaign started a new information
fight for Russian forest. After the elimination of State Environment
Committee and Forest Service Russian forests are supposed to become a
fossil. Proposed merge of these institutions with Ministry of Nature
Resources will make any efforts to interact with forest control bodies even
harder that it was before. Former Forest Service had over 200 thousand
people in staff including over 70 thousand specialists of forest
protection. New Forest department within a ministry will likely have less
than 5 thousand! No one knows still what a new forest policy will be like.
Ministry keeps silence ignoring all the requests. - Comments Alexey
Grigoriev, SEU forest expert.
Budget of forest protection activities is also a question. The whole
ministry in 2001 will have around 150 millions of dollars while forest
service used to have 250 millions of dollars before the ruble crisis of
1998. It makes us think that ministry will get additional money from
somewhere else:
Illegal cutting of the 1 group forest is also a big problem all over the
country and in Moscow region in particular. There forests are most valuable
in terms of environment and according to the Russian law all the activities
conducted in such forests are to pass a state environmental impact
assessment at the federal level, which has never been done for the last 5
years since this legislation is in place. All the permissions to transform
forestlands to non-forest lands (when one is allowed to cut trees) were
issued by the national government. The 1 group forests have being cut
mostly for the elite dachas construction purposes. Russian NGOs won several
cases in the Russian Supreme Court against the government but it didn't stop
the process of illegal cutting.
According to statistics the amount of forests in Moscow region increases
every year. But in reality these "optimistic" numbers include abandoned
agricultural areas being covered by bushes and wick seedlings.
"OAKERY PROGRAM" INITIATIVE
Socio-Ecological Union Forest campaign is launching a new project; the
first place of the project implementation is Volga river basin. Its goal is
to protect large-leafed trees especially oaks of European part of Russia.
Old oaks are under serious threat now. According officials their number
reduced for 30 per cents for the last 20 years, but a real scene might be
much worse. The whole ecosystem is being destroyed.
Immediate actions must be undertaken to safe oakeries especially in
sparsely wooded areas.
Activists started working on the issue. They went for field trip there in
July. According to them the first thing that should be done now is to
provide a protection of the large-leafed trees complexes that are left and
to restore those forests that were partly disturbed.
Forest campaign is seeking for partners to implement this, several
scientific organizations and NGOs from Novgorod, Tver', Vologda, Kaluga
regions and Tatarstan republic of Russia have already joined the campaign.
The 7th SEU Conference in Kiev, Ukraine, adopted this project in August
2000 and by TRN conference in Moscow region, September 2000.
The SEU Forest Campaign is actively searching for different partners to
spread th program to all regions in Russia and abroad, assists activists
with information and planting materials.
The idea of the program is to involve as much people as possible from all
parts of society, to make them feel that oakgrove restoration is their
achievement, that forest belong to all of them, and that they should share
the responsibility of caring for it.
The more active work of the in this zone will aim at helping to develop
scientifically based criteria for protecting southern taiga and
coniferous-broadleaf forests and coordinating its efforts with the work of
other social organizations. The first stage of this work will focus on the
oak forests of the Temperate Zone, which are the most typical southern
neighbors of the boreal forests of the entire European continent.
Reference information: Europe's temperate oak forest belt, although in a
rather fragmented condition, abuts the taiga from the south and stretches
from the westerns edge of Europe (northern Portugal and Spain) to the Ural
mountains. The largest amounts of oak forest in the Temperate Zone are found
in Russia (3.7 million hectares), in France (2.1 million hectares), in
Ukraine (1.7 million hectares), in Germany (900,000 hectares), in Denmark
(500,000 hectares), and in Croatia (300,000 hectares).
Contact: Vladimir Zakharov, forestnews@online.ru, http://www.forest.ru
IN BRIEF:
A BEAR IS A SYMBOL OF RUSSIAN FOREST
In September Live Symbol of Russian Forest Competition came to an end.
It was conducted by CIS branch of IUCN in cooperation with WWF Russia and
former Russian State Forest Service.
Almost 500 children from 40 regions of Russian submitted their pictures to
July. 60 different animals including birds were suggested to be a symbol of
Russian forest. But the majority of Jury members approved Russian bear to
become an official symbol of Russian forest.
Prizewinners will be rewarded during secondary school holidays in the
beginning of November.
FOREST USE IN MURMANSK REGION GETTING MORE SUSTAINABLE
The meeting of NGOs and local forest enterprises on the forest use and
nature conservation was held at the end of July in Murmansk region. It is at
Kola Peninsula where nature reserve "Laplandskiy les" is situated. Main
forest company of the region is "Priroda". For several years they have been
using sustainable technologies such as thinning logging and taking care of
small trees while cutting big ones.
The company is processing all the logs right on the logging site and
trying to use as much timber as they can without wasting anything.
Severe conditions of the region that is beyond the polar circle require
some special approaches to the protection of biodiversity and forest use.
Participants of the meeting agreed that all the areas of special
protection in the region have their special value and must be kept untouched
and it was decided to negotiate the creation of new nature reserves in
Tuadash Tundra and Notoozerskiy les in the local government.
Contact: Mikhail Karpachevsky, e-mail: forest@bcc.seu.ru
WOODMARK IS A SUPERVISER OF ALTAY FORESTS SUSTAINABILITY
As we reported in March Woodmark, Britain Soil Association presented a
report on the results of forest certification in Altay (South Siberia)
forest enterprise Kosikhinskiy (KFE)
(http://www.forest.ru/eng/sustainable_forestry/certification/woodmark.html).
This enterprise got first FSC certificate for 5-year period. It is a first
Russian FSC certificate. Auditors of Woodmark still watching the activities
in Kosikhinskiy in order to be sure that the certificate that was given to
this enterprise "in advance" will be worked off.
Kosikhinsky Forest Enterprise employs about 70 staff and runs two small
sawmills. Round and sawn timber of birch, pine, aspen is produced there.
It is responsible for the 42,000 hectares of 'agricultural forest' in the
district of Kosikha. The area in which the forest lays is a mosaic of forest
and farmland with the agricultural land managed by 12 collective farms.
Management has identified the conflict between grazing of cattle in the
forest and natural regeneration of tree species in the selective management
system. Audit specialist advised the KFE to provide a dialogue with local
people and find a way to limit grazing.
Also according to new rules there will be no clear-cuts in KFE otherwise
FSC certificate will be recalled.
Although forest use in Kosihinskiy is certified as sustainable and
ecologically responsible a lot of homework still has to be done, dozens
mistakes should be corrected to meet all the FSC principles.
NEW FOREST NATURE RESERVE ESTABLISHE IN ANDOMSKY WATERSHED
The new Atleca Landscape Zakaznik (regional nature reserve) of 3 370
hectares was established in August in the Vologda region, northern European
Russia, by the decision of the Vologda governor. It is located in the
Andomsky watershed of the Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean and the Caspian Sea
at the border of three Russian administrative units: Vologda region,
Arkhangelsk region and the Karelian Republic.
The Atleca reserve protects one of the least disturbed old-growth forest
areas (known as the Andomsky forest) in the region. Although the area had
been affected by selective logging in the beginning of the 20 th century,
the Atleca area's forests are close in structure and in their natural
features to typical natural coniferous forests of middle taiga (according to
Russian classification). Many threatened and vulnerable forest plant species
have been found in the area including 3 nationally red-listed and 23
regionally protected. The reserve regulations are rather strong: all logging
activities are directly prohibited.
The area was suggested for protection already in 1996. The original
proposal covered a much larger area, but the Karelian part has been logged
in the past years. The Arkhangelsk part is mainly represented by swampy
forests, which are currently not threatened. In Vologda region the area has
been leased for logging by the Belyj Ruchey (BR) joint stock company - the
biggest logger in the region.
The Atleca reserve was suggested in 1998 as a compromise. However, the
logger, BR, was not in support of this compromise and the situation was
solved this year thanks to consumer pressure from both Russian and
international timber companies buying wood from BR. So, the Atleca reserve
is an indirect result of the Karelian logging moratorium.
The case is also important as the first example of withdrawing of a forest lease.
Alexey Yaroshenko, Greenpeace Russia
(Source: The Bulletin, TRN)
KOVDA TIMBER SIGNS ON TO MORATORIUM
On September 19 the Russian NGO Biodiversity Conservation Center received
a fax from Kovda Timber Ltd. signed by Mrs M.A. Tilikova, director of Forest
Department, in which she apologized for a delay with answering to our
letter. She wrote that after they finish logging the last remained plot in
kv. 7, Nyamozerskoe lesnichestvo, they plan to log only in areas non
included in the moratorium.
Contacts: Mikhail Karpachevsky, forest@bcc.seu.ru
PEACE TALKS IN KARELIA
On September 28, a Round Table was held in Petrozavodsk, Karelia, as a
follow-up of the seminar on forest use in Pyaozero Area in May. This is a
first serious step by the Karelian Government to resolve the conflict of
old-growth forest preservation in the republic.
The Round Table was visited by a wide range of stake-holders and was quite
peaceful and resulted in a proposal for the Karelian Government to establish
a multi stake-holder working group on urgent problems of forest use in
Karelia. The primary task of such a working group would be to elaborate
proposals for improved forest management in various forest areas in Karelia.
The participants expressed the need to speed up the establishment of new
protected areas as well as to prolong the preservation regime for areas
enlisted in other statements by the Karelian Government. These demands fully
correspond to the demands of the NGO community.
The reasons for this sudden shift in the attitude of the Karelian
Government are not known. One possible factor might be that the Karelian
government has been critizised for the ineficient use of Finnish aid money
aiming at the establishment of a number of protected areas.
Mikhail Karpachevsky, forest@bcc.seu.ru
(Source: The Bulletin, TRN)
ECOJURIS SUES PUTIN
The Moscow based Advocacy group Ecojuris is challenging the abolition of
the Russian State Ecology Committee.
On August 22 nd the organization filed suit in the Supreme Court against
the Russian government for its decision to eliminate the State Ecology
Committee and the Federal Forest Service by merging its functions with the
Natural Resources Ministry. The suit asks the Supreme Court to declare the
presidential decree abolishing the Committee unconstitutional and invalid.
(Source: The Bulletin, TRN)
Add.information: http://www.forest.ru/eng/problems/control/
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