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4.2 Historical Land Use and Its Impacts on the Natural Forest

The history of land use in the European boreal region tells the story of the transformation of natural forest with multiple uses to a forest with decreased ecological viability and a very dominant narrow set of uses. The land use histories impacting the forests of Fennoscandia and Northern European Russia are slightly different because of the different political and economic histories of the region. Human effects on boreal forests of both Fennoscandia and Northern European Russia can in general be separated into three distinct phases (See Figure 1). The first stage is that of subsistence and agricultural use. Next, an intermediate stage evolved is characterized by diverse forest use, including both pre-industrial use, such as the production of tar, salt, and potash, as well as subsistence and agricultural use. This stage includes localized selective logging of forests, removing primarily large, old trees. The third stage in forest use of the region is the industrial era of forest exploitation implementing modern silvicultural methods (Östlund 1998). What is significant in the different stages is the extent of the impact on the forest ecosystem.

Figure 1: Phases of Forest Use

PHASE I - Subsistence Use

The forests of the European boreal have been in use for thousands of years. Hunter- gatherer tribes and indigenous nomadic peoples lived from the goods of the forest. Reindeer and cattle grazing, firewood collection and selective logging for subsistence use, and shelter building have gone on for centuries. As the forest areas were settled by humans, agricultural use of the forest lands gained prominence. This use of the forest can be labeled the first stage of forest exploitation. All products people extracted from forests were used for subsistence local needs.

PHASE II - Pre-industrial Forestry

The next phase includes this multiple subsistence use of the forests but sees the growing impact of pre-industrial forestry and forest exploitation for export from the local region and for commodity production. Production of tar, charcoal, salt, and potash in the whole of the European boreal dates back hundreds of years. In Sweden in the 17th and 18th century the location of iron works moved slowly north along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia to make use of the abundant forest for charcoal production (Östlund et al. 1997). In the early 18th century forests in Northern European Russia were impacted by selective logging of large diameter trees to supply Peter the Great's shipbuilding in St. Petersburg. From the late 18th to early 20th century strong demand for high quality timber from western European markets drove the forest industry of Northern European Russia as well as in Fennoscandia.

This second phase of forest use developed in Fennoscandia and Northern European Russia for the most part simultaneously. Of course, the populated areas and those areas near ports and navigable rivers were affected first. It can generally be said that the timber frontier in the region moved from the south to the north, although coastal areas, even in the north, were affected before inland regions. The Northern European Russian port of Arkhangelsk was an important «window to Europe» for timber exports during this phase and even further back in history. It is important to note that, although these activities altered the forests locally and created local shortages of certain wood products around production and transport centers, vast areas of forest wilderness were still intact, only being impacted by selective logging and some areas untouched. The main ecological features of these forests were still intact.

PHASE III, STAGE 1 - Timber Mining

The third phase of forest use in the region brings industrial forestry. It is the development and intensity of the third phase of forest use in the whole region, which differ most between Fennoscandia and Northern European Russia. The first stage of this phase of forest use in the European boreal can be described as timber mining. Timber mining is the one time, intensive extraction of the resource until depletion followed by a shift to a new area to repeat this process (Lindahl 1998). This stage starts with selective logging practices and develops into clearcut logging. In Fennoscandia timber mining moved from south to north in the 1800s reaching the north of the region after the 1850s (Östlund 1993). In Northern European Russia intensive selective logging was concentrated around transport and production centers. Large-scale clearcutting only began in Russia in the 1930s when pulp and papermaking began to demand trees of various sizes and export of forest products to Europe increased due to high demand for hard currency revenues.

One aspect of the third phase witnessed in Northern European Russia is that the introduction of new logging machine technology led to intensive clearcuts in accessible areas. Large scale clearcuts of 1000 ha and logging over the official allowable cut levels were common. There was wide use of penal labor to realize this increased harvest. As a result, extensive cutovers were left in accessible areas and there were many temporary logging settlements founded and soon deserted as the logging machines moved onward. On the flip side, remote areas and those difficult to reach with the new technologies were not impacted by the intensive clearcutting. These areas were also not as impacted by selective logging as in the past because this type of forestry disappeared as the new mechanized forestry practices spread in the region. These more remote areas experienced regeneration and many of these areas today are regarded as old-growth or high conservation value forests.

Fifteen-year-old unregenerated clearcut in subtundra forests near the Lake Chunozero (Murmansk Oblast, Russia).
Photo: Konstantin Kobyakov.

PHASE III, STAGE 2 - Rotation Forestry

This third phase of forest use includes a second stage, which developed in Fennoscandia in the 1950s and has not developed in Russia on a full scale. This second stage of industrial forestry is characterized by rotation forestry. Instead of mining areas of timber and moving on, the forest is exploited using modern silvicultural methods, i.e., clearcutting, ditching, soil scarification, removal of deciduous trees, use of fertilizer, etc. followed by the establishment of a plantation of cash-crop coniferous trees are put in its place. This stage could also be called the conversion stage. Modern silvicultural methods and plantation forestry systematized the conversion of boreal forest ecosystems, extracting timber and the diversity of forest structures and dynamics and replacing them by equalizing all factors in the forest, species, humidity, age class, etc. on a landscape level.

It is essential to point out that it is not just exploitation alone, which jeopardizes the viability of the boreal forest ecosystem, it is the systematic implementation of modern silvicultural methods, which profoundly changes the structure and dynamics of the forest. Modern industrial forest practices in essence take the natural standing forests and completely convert them to a crop aimed at maximum yield. The key elements affected are the removal of large-diameter trees and the natural volume of dead wood snags and downed logs, fire suppression, and mono-culture replanting resulting in single-species, single-age forest stands (Linder and Östlund 1998). These aspects can be clearly seen when comparing the forests of Fennoscandia and the more remote areas of Northern European Russia. Many areas in Northern European Russia, in comparison to Fennoscandia, have to this day never been affected by a systematic implementation of modern forest management to the extent and intensity to which almost all areas of Fennoscandia have been subjected (Östlund, pers. com.).

Perhaps the most important variable for biodiversity is the number of dead trees left in the forests. Forty-seven percent of the forest species on the Swedish red data list are dependent on snags or downed logs. The disturbance of the natural structure and dynamics of the boreal forests show itself through the decrease in birds and epiphytic lichens (Linder and Östlund 1998). Modern industrial forest management has also removed fire from the ecosystem. For example, in central Sweden under natural conditions 0.6-1.9% of the forest land would burn annually. Today, the percentage of forest affected by fire is less than 0.02% annually. This is a reduction by a factor of 30-100 (Eriksen 1995).

The mono-cultural young forests are much denser and contain more trees than a natural forest with uneven age structure including large-diameter trees. This unnatural density is also seen in unmanaged, protected forests from which fire has been excluded. These unnaturally dense forests are inhibitory for light-demanding, competition-sensitive species, for example, vascular plants. Invertebrates also suffer from denser forests (Linder and Östlund 1998).

Forestry practices in the Russian forests, such as large-scale clearcuts and poor regeneration practices, all contribute to the ecological degradation of the forests. In contrast to Fennoscandia, Russian forest management regimes in the area under consideration do not have a history of successful wide-scale use of artificial regeneration, or replanting, of coniferous tree species. Large-scale clearcutting, which began in the 1930s in Russia, brought about the spread of secondary deciduous forests dominated by birch and aspen. These Russian secondary forests, although much richer than Fennoscandian mono-cultural forests, are poor in biodiversity compared to the natural conifer-dominated old-growth forests.

While wildfires almost extinct in Fennoscandia, their presence in Russian forests is much above natural levels. Thus, over the period from 1975 to 1995, in zapovedniks in European Russia only 22.5% of fires were attributed to lightning, compared to an average of 7.6% for the rest of the region according to the statistics of the Federal Forest Service. All other fires were induced by humans or were of unclear origin (Kuleshov and Korotkov 1998). As a result of their intensity and frequency these fires destroy important fire refugia, on which many forest species intolerant to fire are dependent.

Large areas of remaining old-growth forests in Russia are reference ecosystems, representing key elements in the larger ecological network. The old-growth forest areas are attractive to the forest industry due to their relatively large area and large volume trees yielding timber. The number of large areas of old-growth forests in Northern European Russia is shrinking; however, when compared to those areas in Fennoscandia, Russian areas are quite large. Clearcutting and a system of logging roads have resulted in the fragmentation of forest areas. Fragmentation disturbs the wholeness of the populations of plants and wildlife and decreasing viability and destroying migration pathways for many animals. Fragmentation makes wilderness areas more accessible to humans, increasing the risk of unnatural disturbances, e.g., fires.

Table 1. Comparison of Swedish Forest Reserves and
Forests Impacted by Forestry

Region	Forest location	Deciduous Trees %	Dead Wood %	Large Diameter Trees %	Vol m3/ha
Northern Norrland	nature reserve	13.7	9.3	13.6	98
	outside nature reserve	11.2	2.9	3.2	134
Southern Norrland	nature reserve	14.7	5.8	9.2	127
	outside nature reserve	7.8	2.6	4.7	198
Total for Sweden	nature reserve	14.6	7.8	13.2	107
	outside nature reserve	14.6	2.3	8.1	185

Source: Fridman 1999.

The impact of the third phase of industrial forestry can be illustrated with Table 1 from the Swedish forest. The table shows the difference in key structural features in a nature reserve (protected from industrial logging) and forest areas outside of this protected area. The table highlights the marked decrease in deciduous trees, dead wood and large diameter trees and the increase in forest stand density in the managed forest.

PHASE IV - Sustainable Forestry

There is a movement towards a fourth phase of forest use in the European boreal forest. In Fennoscandia, sustainable forest management, which attempts to mimic natural process and restore system complexity, could be characterized as the next emergent phase of forest use in the region. This phase is in its infancy in Fennoscandia. A shift in attitude has taken place but the unsustainable practices are still being implemented. It remains to be seen what the result will be. In Russia the pressure of new technologies and socioeconomic difficulties threaten to bring the stage of rotation forestry to Russia in full force. There is pressure from foreign companies, primarily based in the countries of Fennoscandia, to log the relatively timber rich forests of Russia.

Many companies from Fennoscandia are involved in the development of the forest industry in Russia. However, if they were to apply the same standards for nature protection and ecologically adapted management practices demanded of them in their home country, there is some chance that the ecosystem conversion stage of industrial forest use will never arrive to Russia on a region wide level. In this case Northern European Russia could move ahead to the fourth phase. In Russia during the last several years, the official annual allowable cut levels have significantly decreased (although they are still greater than the sustainable level envisioned by NGOs) and the number and area of zapovedniks and national parks increased. This could be a step in the right direction; however, this trend seems to have slowed due to political and economic pressures.

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