Forest Categories and Territories Most Significant for Conserving Forest Biological and Landscape Diversity

5. Forest categories and territories most significant for conserving forest biological and landscape diversity

Categories of Forest Reserve Areas Most Valuable for Biological Diversity Conservation

Forest communities: upland native old-age oak forests with a non-moral biotic complex of plants and animals; flood-plain old-age oak forests; old-age hornbeam forests; communities of maple and lime-tree forests; old-age ash forests; old-age black alder forests with a biotic complex of eutrophic bogs (marshes); old-age and uneven-aged pine forests on dry sandy soils (including on ancient and modern dune complexes); native old-age and uneven-aged pine forests on oligotrophic (high) bogs; rare zonal native climax and sub-climax old-age and uneven-aged fir forests; old-age fir forests in island locations beyond the main areas of fir distribution; tree communities with the participation of Karelian birch, rare and valuable form of weeping birch; flood-land forest communities of white and black poplar; mountainous forests with the participation of silver fir and beech.

Open woodland-shrub communities: juniper open woodland of Juniperus communis L.; willow thickets on river flood-lands; communities with domination of short birch (Betula humilis Schrank) on mesotrophic (transitory) bogs; shrubs of Pontic azalea (Rodonendron luteum Sweet).

Wetland ecosystems: open eutrophic sedge bogs (including calciphilous marsh communities and acidophilous eutrophic bog communities);

oligitrophic sphagnum bogs: mesotrophic bogs (including grass communities with the domination of cotoon grass).

Belarus

Forests and forest areas in the Dnipro Basin of special significance for biological diversity conservation are as follows:

- flood-land forests in the valleys of the Prypiat and its tributaries, the Dnipro, Sozh, Berezina, Drut and Besed Rivers;

- forest massif (range, system)of the Svisloch-Berezina interfluve area, unique for its preserved complexes of broad-leaved forests;

- forest-wetland complexes of rare preservation condition in the Drut-Berezina interfluve;

- unique in their composition and preservation condition forest and forest-wetland massifs of the Berezina biosphere reserve area and the “Prypiat” National Park;

- forest massifs of the Polessye radio-environmental reserve area of unmatched research value and character of natural dynamics;

- forests of Kostiukovichi and Klimivichi districts of Mogiliov oblast, rare in their flora species composition and landscape structure;

- forest-wetland complexes of Olman marshes (Stolin district of Brest oblast and Lelchitsa district of Gomel oblast) characterized with exceptionally rare preservation condition and unique size;

- forest-wetland complexes of the Berezina biosphere reserve area having an extremely rare preservation condition and size.

Russia

The most valuable forest areas of the Russian part of the Dnipro Basin are:

- forest massif (range) at the Dnipro headstream in Kholm-Zhirkov district of Smolensk oblast;

- Briansk forest massif – an integrated forest ecosystem bordering on the steppe zone with the area of over 500 thousand hectares within the administrative borders of Briansk, Kaluga, Oriol and Sumy (Ukraine) oblasts;

- forest massif located along the River Seim left bank, between the towns of Rylsk and Lgov of Kursk oblast;

- a group of forest massif on both banks of the Vorskla River in Belgorod oblast.

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