Belarus

Pugachevsky, Alexander Viktorovich – Project Manager, Deputy Director for Research of the Institute for Experimental Botany, National Academy of Science of Belarus, Head of the Laboratory for Productivity and Sustainability of Forest Ecosystems, Candidate of Biology

Kulagin, Alexey Petrovich – Project Consultant, Chief Engineer of the Forestry Management National Unitary Enterprise “Belgosles”, Candidate of Agrarian Sciences

Molozhavsky, Anatoliy Alexandrovich – Project Consultant, Head of the Division for Monitoring Plant Communities, Institute for Experimental Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Candidate of Biology

Korotkevych, Nadezhda Alexandrovna – Project Consultant, Research Fellow of the Laboratory for Productivity and Sustainability of Forest Ecosystems, Institute for Experimental Botany, National Academy of Science of Belarus

The Russian Federation

Biziukov, Anatoliy Ivanovich – Project Consultant, Head of Informational-Analytical Department of the National Environmental Fund “Dnipro Revival”

Smirnov, Sergey Ivanovich – Project Consultant, Chair of the Department of Forest Protection and Hunting Monitoring, Briansk State Engineering Technological Academy, Doctor of Agrarian Sciences

Kremen, Anatoliy Semilnovych – Project Consultant, Chair of Physical Geography Department, Smolensk State Pedagogical University, Doctor of Geography, Professor

Ukraine

Sheliag-Sosonko, Yuriy Romanovych – Project Consultant, Head of the Laboratory, Institute of Botany, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Academician of the NAS of Ukraine, Professor, Doctor of Biology;

Tkach, Viktor Petrovych – Project Consultant, Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute for Forestry Management and Agrarian and Forest Amelioration, Doctor of Agrarian Sciences, Senior Research Fellow;

Buksha, Ihor Fedorovych – Project Consultant, Head of the Laboratory for Forest Monitoring and Certification, Ukrainian Research Institute for Forestry Management and Agrarian and Forest Amelioration, Candidate of Agrarian Sciences, Senior Research Fellow;

Hrodzinsky, Mykhailo Dmytrovych – Project Consultant, Chair of the Department of Physical Geography and Geo-ecology, Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, Doctor of Geography, Professor.

Project Rationale

Project 5.3.c. “Analysis of Forestry Use and Management Practices in the Context of Landscape and Biodiversity Protection in the Dnipro Basin” was designed to develop proposals for the enhancement of the role forests play in conserving biological and landscape diversity. It is geared towards sustaining their environmental (i.e. water cycle protection, soil preservation and climate regulation) and social functions on the basis of a comprehensive assessment of forests and forestry use, together with the management practices in the Dnipro Basin. These proposals are expected to be incorporated into the overall basin-wide program of actions and three national action plans of the Dnipro Basin environmental rehabilitation.

1. Brief overview of the Dnipro basin forests

The Dnipro Basin area covers 503.5 thousand square kilometers. It occupies a central position amongst other river basins in the territory of Ukraine (305.2 thousand square km, or 50.6% of the country’s total land area) and Belarus (116.4 thousand square km, or 56.1% of the country’s total area). It lies in the west of the European part of the Russian Federation (81.9 thousand square km, or 0.5% of the country’s total area).

Forests constitute one of the main landscape and environment forming components of the Dnipro Basin. They cover 124.8 thousand square km of its territory, including 46.7 thousand square km in the Belorussian part of the basin (40.1% of the area), 26.9 thousand square km in the Russian part (27.2% of the basin area) and 51.2 thousand square km in the Ukrainian part of the basin (16.8% of the area). The average percentage of forest area is 24.8%.

One of the three basin countries’ major natural resources, forests perform a number of extremely important environmental functions, namely those of water protection, soil preservation and climate regulation. Forests are a natural habitat for the most part of land biota. They provide necessary conditions for numerous species of plants, mushrooms and fungi, algae and animals (both vertebrate and invertebrate).

Forest growing conditions in the basin are determined by the geo-morphological structure of the territory, its soil continuum and climate. They vary within a fairly broad range: from conditions favourable for the formation of southern-taiga phytocoenoses (plant communities) dominated by fir and pine trees in the northern part of the basin, to those auspicious for highly productive mixed coniferous-and-broadleaved forests in Belorussian and Ukrainian Polessye with their fauna and flora diversity, for pine and oak forests in Ukrainian forest-steppe zone adjusted to unstable water regime, and, finally, for isles of forests in steppe ravines and flood-plains in the central and southern steppe, and mountainous forests with beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), spruce and silver fir (Abies alba L.) on the foothills and eastern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.

The Dnipro River being 2,285 km long, the latitude projection of its stream from the north to the south is about 1,040 km. According to the forest zoning adopted in the former USSR, the Dnipro River and its tributaries stretch from the north to the east of the Eurasian forest area of the moderate zone (Scandinavian-Russian province) and of Eurasian steppe area (Southern Russian province). The Dnipro flows through 4 natural zones (from the north to the south), namely: the zones of mixed forests and of deciduous forests, forest-steppe and steppe zones.

Coniferous trees dominate in the basin forest vegetation (55.3% of area). The most common are pine (Pinus silvestris L.) forests: they make up 48.6% of the Dnipro Basin forests. The share of the European fir (Picea abies Karst.) is also noticeable in the northern part of the basin, in particular, in Smolensk (25.9%), Vitebsk (23.2%), Mogiliov (16.5%), Minsk (13.0%) oblasts, and on the eastern slopes of the Carpathian mountains (21.3% in Lviv oblast).

Smolensk oblast is unique for the basin in that it has a big share (62.5%) of derivative small-leaved species of birch (Betula pendula Roth.), aspen (Populus tremula L.), gray alder (Alnus incana (L.) Moench) in its forests, which is the result of felling native coniferous and broad-leaved forests in the past and replacing them with fast growing pioneer species: birch, aspen and gray alder. The share of small-leaved species in the basin forests amounts to 30.0%, of which 7.0% is made up by native black alder forests on marshes (eutrophic bogs) and river flood-lands.

Further southwards, broad-leaved species (oak, ash, maple) compete with pine. In Lviv and Ternopil oblasts, beech is rather common, too. The overall share of forests with dominating hard-leaved species is as small as 13.6% of the forest-covered basin area, while in the forest-steppe and steppe zones oak stand constitutes the major part of forest vegetation. Oak dominates in the forests of Oriol, Kursk, Belgorod oblasts of the Russian part of the basin, as well as in Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Cherkassy, Vynnytsia, Kirovograd, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk oblasts of Ukraine. On the whole, the share of oak forests in the Ukrainian part of the basin is 20.9% of the forest-covered basin area, as compared to 12% of such area in the entire basin.

Forests with predominant ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) communities are characteristic of the flood-plains of the basin rivers. Their share in the forest-covered area is 0.9%.

Shrubs occupy over 1% of the forest-covered basin area. These consist of various species of willow (Salix sp.) on transitional (mesotrophic) bogs, marshes (eutrophic bogs) and river flood-plains, as well as of juniper (Juniperus communis L.) on sandy soils.

Fig. 1.1. Forest coverage (%) of the Dnipro Basin territory (by oblasts and raions)

2. Forest coverage of the Dnipro basin territory

The forest coverage of the basin territory is extremely irregular. The number of forests tends to decrease from the northern districts (raions) of Smolensk oblasts with high forest density (50%-70%) and low population density, through the districts with relatively large forest areas in Belarus, Briansk, Kaluga and Oriol oblasts of the Russian Federation and Ukrainian Polessye (forest coverage of 25%-50%), to the sparsely wooded regions of forest-steppe and Black Sea coast steppe (forest coverage of under 15%, sometimes as low as 5%).

In practically every oblast, there are separate districts (raions) or entire regions where the forested area should be urgently expanded by afforesting unused or misused territories.

Contemporary dynamics of the forest coverage in the basin is characterized by a trend towards growing percentage of forest area throughout the whole basin territory, which results from the crisis in agriculture and contamination of a vast territory with the radioactive emissions following the Chernobyl NPP accident.

Low or insufficient forest coverage is one of the impediments to the development of landscape, fauna and flora diversity in most parts of the Dnipro Basin, although this problem stems not from the forestry management per se, but rather from the inefficient use of forests for agricultural, industrial and building purposes in the past.

Table 2.1. Forest coverage (%) of administrative territorial units (oblasts) of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine within the Dnipro Basin

• Note: Calculations based on all districts (raions) within the oblast territory (see Fig. 1.1 on previous page).

4. Radioactive pollution and contamination of forest land and its impact on biological and landscape biodiversity

According to the radiation monitoring data, the area of the three riparian countries’ forest land contaminated with radionuclides is 4,658.7 thousand hectares, or 34.2% of the total forest-covered area of the Dnipro Basin. The largest areas of contaminated land (2,616.1 thousand hectares) are found in the Ukrainian part of the basin, while the most contaminated (over 5 Curie per square kilometer) areas are concentrated in Belarus (495.1 thousand hectares).

According to the effective norms and rules, forestry management and use in the areas with high radioactive contamination levels are restricted. Restrictions related to high radiation levels in forests have an overall favorable impact on the biological and landscape diversity of the basin territories where forestry management is either sustained or considerably reduced in scope and intensity. As a result, natural ecosystems are restored and the natural successions are not interrupted by felling. Fire clearing of wood-cutting areas is banned in the territories with high contamination levels. The anxiety factor is either removed whatever or significantly reduced.

The task of academics and forestry practitioners is to maintain the high level of flora and fauna diversity of the forests that will return into a common use in the future as the radioactive contamination levels decrease.

Table 4.1. Area of land under forest in the Dnipro Basin contaminated with radionuclides, thousand hectares

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.

6. Forest legislation efficiency in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine in respect of biological and landscape diversity conservation

As the three riparian countries are the former Soviet Union republics, their legal frameworks regulating forestry management and use are alike. Moreover, many of the relevant legislative provisions have remained effective since the times when the three countries belonged to one state.

The forest division into groups and protection categories, forestry standards and rules, industry regulations of the three countries have much in common, whereas the regulatory differences are connected with different environmental and climatic conditions, forms of forest land ownership, advance in reforming forest industry and management systems.

There is a substantial body of legislation regulating, directly and indirectly, the protection and use of forest fauna and flora. In the course of the project, 39 legislation instruments of the Russian Federation, 46 Ukrainian and 52 Belorussian were analyzed.

Legislative provisions concerning the conservation of biological and landscape diversity are fragmented and sometimes controversial. For the most part, they are not applied directly. Since they do not form a comprehensive consistent system, such norms do not secure proper legal guarantees for an effective protection, maintenance and sustainable use of forest biodiversity, perhaps, with the only exception of regulations of hunting fauna species.

The effective regulations on managing forests of various protection categories do not apply to the activities aimed at biodiversity conservation. However, they differentiate between economic activities in the forests of different use, which has a positive, if indirect, impact on fauna, flora and landscape diversity. The efficiency of a developed system of protective forests and plantations, specially protected areas and other categories of forest land of predominantly environmental value is rather high.

As for the system of forestry management activities and forest use, it is not sufficiently regulated with regard to conserving individual components significant for biodiversity sustaining, namely: dead timber, dry, hollow, old-age and rare trees, bushes and shrubs, rare and even endangered species of undergrowth and grass layers, nests of birds and small mammals, minor water bodies and streams, transit zones, etc.

Felling has a direct and most pronounced influence on biodiversity. Therefore, the effective felling rules and instruction as well as sanitary standards should be urgently revised and amended. The implementation of new felling regulations will facilitate biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

The three countries’ legal regulations regarding lands disturbed by extraction of mineral resources and transferred (returned) into the forest reserve are inflexible. They rigidly determine the use of lands for a designed purpose, most commonly for afforestation, thus restricting the possibilities for the forest industry enterprises to use them in a more appropriate way, and entailing environmental threats and risks (for example, of peat fires).

Forest certification is a powerful tool allowing to make forestry management and use more environmentally friendly and effective. It is under way in each of the three riparian countries. Forest certification is critical, regardless of its implementation method: through the introduction of national patterns with the successive integration within the existing international forest certification systems or through direct accession to such systems as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC (Pan-European Forest Certification).

7. Major threats to biological and landscape diversity posed by forestry management and use

The most common problems posing threats to the conservation of forest flora, fauna and landscape diversity in the Dnipro Basin are as follows:

1. The lack or deficiency, in the forest industry legislative framework, of norms directly providing for the need to conserve and develop biological and landscape diversity, to apply the principles of sustainable forestry management and use.

2. Considerable area of land ineffectively drained in the course of forest hydro-technical amelioration or dried as the result of agricultural land drainage in the forests, which increases forest fire risks and probability of forest stand destruction by biotic and abiotic factors (Belorussian and Ukrainian Polessye, Smolensk and Briansk oblasts).

3. Transfer into the state forest reserve of considerable areas of abandoned peat mines and low fertility lands removed from agricultural use where forest restoration and forest growing is difficult (all territory of the Belorussian part of the basin) but the fires are frequent.

4. Unsatisfactory practices, low economic efficiency and inconsistency of forest use in a great part of forests managed by agricultural enterprises or located on reserve lands.

5. Critically low percentage of forest area in separate administrative units in the northern and central parts of the basin, and entire regions in the forest-steppe and steppe zones; high fragmentation of forest areas.

6. Slow introduction of forest certification in the forest industries of the three countries conditioned by the industry personnel’s lack of understanding of the forest certification phenomenon, insufficient activity of the state power bodies and NGOs in this sphere. Shortage of available information in the national languages.

7. Slow introduction in the forest industry of systems, methods and techniques facilitating the conservation of biotope diversity (dead timber, brushwood, micro-biotopes, target specially protected areas, etc).

8. Undeveloped (or underdeveloped) landscape and basin-wide approaches in designing, planning and organizing forestry management and use activities.

9. Absolute domination of final main felling in the system of forest use.

10. Lack of an integrated approach to the forest use organization with due regard of the necessity to conserve biological and landscape diversity.

11. Occasional transformation of selective sanitary felling into commercial field ones.

12. Increasingly frequent explosions of forest pests populations and spread of forest diseases due to the deteriorating climate conditions, weakened sustainability of tree mono-species, low efficiency of the forest protection system. This problem pertains, in particular, to Polessye administrative-territorial complex of the Russian Federation where the planting of mono-species pine forests with low biological sustainability on vast areas led to a massive infestation of tree plantations with pine fungus, especially on old-arable soils, and, eventually, to their degradation.

13. Dominating trend to grow coniferous species and reduce the areas with broadleaved plantations, orientation towards creating mono-species forests.

14. Absence of theoretically substantiated practice of growing uneven-aged forest stands and insufficient participation of mixed stands.

15. Forest enterprises’ lacking materials on populations of rare and endangered plant and animal species and their disregarding the need to conserve these populations.

16. Untimely receipt of information on the changing state of forests and its evaluation on the regional level because of the absence of a forest monitoring system or its operation at a lower capacity that the rated one (refers, primarily, to the Russian part of the basin and, to a lesser extent, to the Ukrainian and Belorussian ones).

17. Degradation of a considerable part of protection forest plantations in Ukraine, Kursk, Belgorod and Oriol oblasts of the Russian Federation leading to the loss of functional properties of these plantations and their biota diversity.

18. Repeated regrowth having an adverse impact on the oak forest sustainability in the forest-steppe zone of the Russian and Ukrainian parts of the basin, which, coupled with the damage from forest pests and diseases, in potential critical situations can cause their massive drying.

19. Low share of old-age (mature and overmature) plantations in the forest reserve of the majority of the basin regions.

20. Critically high recreational load (pressure) on certain forest areas, especially those linked with rivers and water-bodies, and especially in the Ukrainian part of the basin.

8. Strategic recommendations

The following constitute proposals for improving the environmental situation in Dnipro Basin forests, enhancing their environmental functions, and conserving landscape and biodiversity.

Forest Policy and Legislation

1. The forest industry legislative framework should be revised and amended to include provisions of the necessity to conserve and develop biological and landscape diversity. To this end, we propose the following: to draft and incorporate provisions on the conservation and restoration of biological and landscape diversity and on the application of sustainable forestry management and use principles; to amplify the regional “Regulations for organizing and developing forest industry” and other documents on forestry management in the Russian part of the basin with provisions on restoring forest biological and landscape diversity, on preserving forest environmental and resource potential and on creating conditions for the conservation of flora and fauna populations; to develop legislation instruments regulating the norms of anthropogenic load (pressure) on the forest landscapes of different types, as well as the norms and regimes of recreational forest use, etc.

2. The process of introducing forest certification on the national (Belarus and Ukraine) and regional (Russia) levels should be accelerated. Forestry management authorities, in cooperation with environmental NGOs and international organizations, should develop and implement a forest certification training program for the industry personnel, including the publication of required training and awareness raising materials. The system of public ecological audit of the forestry management in the Dnipro Basin forests should be further developed.

3. In developing the national long-time governmental policies of forest conservation and forest use, special attention should be paid to the cooperation with the private sector, non-governmental organizations, academic and research institutions, local population and local governments.

4. In developing the riparian countries’ forest policies, the principle of synergy of environmental conventions (biodiversity, Ramsar, frame convention on climate change, on fighting desertification/land degradation, Arhuss conventions) should be applied.

5. The principles of ministerial process of the European forest conservation declared in the documents of the European Forest Ministers’ meetings in Strasbourg, Helsinki and Lisbon should be implemented more consistently and systematically.

Forestry Management and Use Practices

6. A regional (basin-wide) program or a set of coordinated national programs of using ineffectively drained lands and/or lands disturbed with peat land development, and of mitigating the adverse impact of a large-scale land drainage in the Dnipro Basin should be developed and realized.

7. A target sectoral program of afforestation of abandoned peat mines and lands removed from agricultural use should be developed and implemented.

8. Management of the forests transferred from agricultural enterprises and those in their use should be ensured, and a target program of sustainable use of such forests should be developed.

9. An interstate basin-wide program of expanding forest areas should be developed and realized.

10. An interstate basin-wide target program (or a set of coordinated national programs) of increasing environmental efficiency of forest industry should be developed and implemented.

11. Systems of forest area development should be designed with due regard to the needs of conserving biological and landscape diversity (based on the principles of landscape development, key biotopes, environmental corridors, wider use of mixed forests, stimulating natural restoration, etc).

12. Stock of protective plantations in the Dnipro Basin (particularly in the forest-steppe and steppe zones) should be taken in order to assess their condition and to design activities aimed at their conservation and enhancement of their functions and role in biological and landscape diversity conservation; an interstate program of protective afforestation should be developed.

13. Pilot projects with coordinated aims, content and location should be initiated in the three countries in the field of sustainable forestry management and use. Later on, a basin-wide network of sample forests for a model forestry management should be formed on the basis of the model forest ideology. By way of implementing the Memorandum of Understanding between the Federal Forest Service of the Russian Federation and the Forest Service of Environment Canada (1994) within the Model Forest Program, a model forest should be created on the basis of Briansk forest massif (range).

14. Environmentally acceptable forest harvesting technologies (assortment technology, selective felling, use of wheeled logging equipment) should be used more broadly and intensively.

15. A concept of hunting management based on the principles of landscape organization and sustainable development of forest areas should be developed and tested in model hunting forestries.

16. Theoretical principles and methodological recommendations on the use, protection and restoration of small ravine forests in the steppe zone (Ukraine) and of flood-land forests (all countries) in the Dnipro Basin should be worked out.

17. A program of improving recreational use of forests, particularly those in the suburban zones, based on their condition assessment, on substantiated norms of recreational load and on functional zoning of recreational forests should be designed with the account of these norms, networks of environmental routes and paths, etc. Environmentally friendly forms of forest tourism and recreation should be broadly advertised.

Environmental Protection Practices

18. Forest areas should be expanded as part of the environmental reserves by establishing specially protected areas (reserve areas, preserves, national parks, natural landmarks, etc). Forests and forest districts belonging to the natural and cultural heritage should be identified, their environmental status should be determined and appropriate methods of forestry management selected.

19. The state power bodies in charge of the environmental protection and use of natural resources, in cooperation with research and academic institutions, should compile an inventory of habitats of plant and animal species subject to protection in accordance with the international and national environmental legislation (Red Books and so on), design measures for their preservation and notify land users of their respective obligations. They should also organize training programs for forest industry employees and provide forest industry enterprises with the necessary methodological and reference materials.

20. A national Green Book of rare and endangered plant communities of the Republic of Belarus and a regional one of the Russian Federation should be compiled by analogy with the Green Book published in Ukraine.

21. Vulnerable forest ecosystems of the Dnipro Basin should be identified, their international cadastre should be formed and recommendations on their protection and use regimes should be developed.

Research, Monitoring and Education

22. Based on the existing national and regional (in the Russian Federation) forest monitoring systems, as integrated basin-wide system should be set up in order to ensure control of the biodiversity condition and state of forest biological resources.

23. A coordinated (or joint) research program aimed at the assessment of forestry management and use on flora, fauna and landscape diversity should be developed as well as a series of activities to reduce and end their adverse impact. Environmental and economic consequences of the extreme natural and anthropological factors that caused mass destruction of fir forests, big forest fires, massive pine infection with pine fungus and oak forest drying, and the impact of these factors on the Dnipro Basin biological and landscape diversity should be thoroughly assessed.