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Strategic Recommendations
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3.1. Strategic Recommendations
It is recommended that the national landscape preserve “Streshinsky,” covering an overall area of 6,867 hectares, be established in the territory of Gomel Oblast in Zhlobin and Buda-Koshelevsky district. This territory is a stripe of land, 500-m – 4,000-m wide and 32-km long, stretching from the north to the south of the town of Zhlobin, almost to the confluence of the Berezina and Dnipro.
The future preserve territory is to include lands belonging to 18 land-users (including 15 large agricultural enterprises, one farm, Zhlobin and Buda-Koshelevsky forestries), a section of the Dnipro and Okra water areas, and several bayou lakes that are part of the reserve land stock. Every land user’s lands are commonly represented by several land parcels, which means that the land use in the territory is of mosaic structure. The land of agricultural enterprises makes up 57% of the overall preserve area, that of forestries – 38%, that of reserve stock – 5%. Percentage of forest land in the territory amounts to 24%. Marshes and swamps make up over 10%, while another 6% of area is under water.
A special regime of environmental protection should be introduced in the “Streshinsky” preserve territory, banning or limiting the activities detrimental to the sustainable development and functioning of ecosystems, changing the historical landscapes and breaking the structure of the most valuable plant communities and animal habitats.
The following activities should be banned in the whole preserve territory: irrigation, drainage and other operations leading to the change of natural landscapes and existing hydrological regime; extraction of minerals, mowing of natural meadows; use of herbicides and other chemical plant protection means; discharge of untreated or insufficienttly-treated waste water into receiving waters, setting up stationary tourist camps and parking lots in non-assigned places; motor vehicle traffic off the roads, except for the vehicles engaged in agricultural and forest management works.
In the whole preserve territory, clear and gradual felling of major use trees in oak groves and plantations of black older, ash and hornbeam should be prohibited in the course of forestry activities. All types of felling of major commercial trees should be banned in the most valuable communities of aboriginal old-age floodplain oak groves, ash forests, aspen forests of rare structure, old-age fir woods, hornbeam forests, in the most valuable parts of old-age pine forests on the flood-land terraces of the Dnipro River. Given the high fire risk, fire slash removal should be prohibited and spring burnouts should be prevented. Forest regeneration works should be oriented to natural growth in wood cutting areas after clear-cutting of major utility trees.
Since this territory has an important role as a trans-continental ecological corridor, the environmental significance of the Streshinsky preserve and its status as a Ramsar Site should be internationally recognized.
Cattle grazing should be limited in the valuable areas; net-fishing should be prohibited in the areas where protected aquatic and littoral plants grow extensively; bans on spring hunting should be introduced periodically (once every 2-3 years) to protect bird populations.
Area Management Plan should be developed and implemented to ensure effective protection of ecosystems and habitats of rare and extinct species.
Additional funding for the project extension, including international financial assistance (TACIS, FAR, GEF), will be required for the implementation of the activities described above.
