Hurricane cut

The hurricane of 2010 still does not let us forget about it. In the Leningrad region, trees were felled on thousands of hectares, and a significant part of the windfall has still not been dismantled, which leads to the danger of fires and dendroepidemics due to bark beetles. Meanwhile, residents of sparsely populated areas have sounded the alarm: they say that under the guise of clearing fallen trees, healthy and viable trees are being cut down en masse

The environmental organization Green Wave, together with Novaya, conducted a survey of the Dymovsky district forestry (part of the North-Western forestry) on the Karelian Isthmus, from where a signal was received from concerned residents. The latter agreed to talk to the press only on condition of anonymity, since, according to them, they had already received threats from interested parties.
The Forest Declaration, published on the website of the Leningrad Region government, assumes clear sanitary felling of more than a thousand hectares in the Dymovskoye forestry in 2012. It is significant that no other type of felling is planned here: everyone will cut “under the lunar landscape.” Although the hurricane, naturally, did not hit everywhere equally. In some places, all or almost all the trees actually lay (which is typical, most of these rubbles have already been dismantled), in others, more often on hills - 50 to 50, and in the lowlands and on wind-protected slopes there were no more than 15-20% of fallen trees. Therefore, often in the second, and even more so in the third case, it is not clear, but selective sanitary cuttings that are required - that is, to remove fallen trees and leave untouched ones untouched.
Meanwhile, according to statements from local residents, cutters sometimes do not touch fallen trees at all, which have become substandard in two years, but only cut down living, unprofitable timber.
“This is not true,” Yuriy Pilipchuk, general director of Lesnoy Kompleks CJSC, which is a tenant of the Dymovskoye forestry, told Novaya’s correspondent. — Residents do not understand the situation. We have 31.5 thousand hectares under lease, of which, according to the 2010 declaration, 15,673 hectares were felled, that is, half. If earlier our estimated logging per year was 40 thousand cubic meters, then after the hurricane it was 3 million cubic meters, and despite this, we are coping! We did so much last year—we thought we’d get awards, but it turns out they want to blame us. A standing forest is an amateurish concept. The wind cannot touch one tree and not another, and those trees that we leave become unusable after a year. Either it was eaten by a bark beetle or it was broken. And God forbid the spread of parasites, the entire forest will have to be cut down.
According to Yuri Timofeevich, in the Dymovsky district forestry, 70% are coniferous forests (30 are deciduous), of which 80% are spruce (20 are pine), which are overmature, that is, most susceptible to the bark beetle, which begins to multiply especially rapidly in areas of abundant windfall, and then, having gained a critical mass, can threaten healthy surrounding forests with a real epidemic.
“The typograph bark beetle really grows in windfalls and is especially dangerous for mature spruce,” confirms Alexey Yaroshenko, head of the forest program of Greenpeace Russia. “In about a year or two, it accumulates in numbers, so cutting down the remaining unfelled spruce trees where there was windfall is justified. Another thing is that they are late with sanitary cuttings, and in the end this does not give much. (In the Moscow region there is now a sharp increase in the number of the bark beetle; it has already eaten 50 thousand hectares.) That is, if sanitary felling continues to this day, and the bark beetle has really been gaining in numbers all this time, then it will no longer be possible to prevent the outbreak. At the same time, clear sanitary felling is justified only in a spruce forest, if the forest is mixed or with a predominance of pine - then the trees are able to resist the bark beetle thanks to the resin; in such forests clear cutting is not needed. Moreover, we know of cases where clear cuttings are carried out in healthy forests for the sake of timber harvesting. But I can’t make a diagnosis remotely, so I can’t say what exactly the situation is in the Leningrad region.
If we take the data of Yuri Pilipchuk, it turns out that spruce makes up 56% of the tree stand in Dymovskoye. This is a lot, but still part of the affected forests are mixed or without Christmas trees at all, where selective sanitary felling could have been sufficient. However, let us remind you that the declaration assumes only continuous ones. In this case, an important factor is the intended purpose of the forests in Dymovskoye - as follows from the declaration, all logging will be carried out in protective forests, which, if not for the hurricane, would be practically inviolable. And they will become so again when the consequences of the natural disaster are eliminated...
— Currently, half of the Dymovskoye forestry is actually allocated for clear sanitary felling. These are gigantic areas,” explains Anastasia Filippova, head of environmental projects at the Green Wave ROO. — A field inspection of a number of plots in the 16th quarter showed: in addition to clearing windfalls, a large number of viable trees are being cut down, and the plantings are not weakened and are represented by various species. This raises concerns about the unfairness of the challenges. It is doubtful that all designated sanitary measures should be carried out in the form of clear cuttings. In addition, during the inspection it was discovered that the tenant was grossly violating the norms of the Forest Code by carrying out clear cutting in the water protection zone of the lakes.
In the near future, the RPO "Green Wave" plans to contact the Committee on Natural Resources and the governor of the Leningrad region with a request to create a commission with the involvement of independent experts, including from environmental organizations and research institutions, to verify the validity of clear-cutting in such areas. The organization also plans to conduct, together with partners, satellite monitoring of the situation in the forestry.
Novaya, in turn, sent a request to the Committee on Natural Resources of the Leningrad Region to determine the position of officials in relation to the revealed facts.
examination of the “new”
Green Wave experts, with the support of forestry specialists from local residents, inspected selected areas of the Dymovsky district forestry.
Quarter 65, section 24
Clear felling was carried out on an area of ​​about 15 hectares. The remaining trees are seed aspens, of little value from a commercial point of view. The percentage of standing and fallen trees after felling can be determined by the stumps (which are not uprooted or taken away, but left in place): inverts - from fallen ones, looking straight up - from healthy ones. Thus, on the hill - 50 to 50, in the lowlands - no more than 15-20% of those fallen. The remaining trees are good, with intact root systems. An approximate estimate of the volume of standing trees cut down is 2,400 cubic meters (their very approximate value is 1 million 200 thousand rubles).
Block 92, northern part
There are significantly more inverted stumps than upright stumps. Most likely, clear cutting here was justified.
Quarter 16, sections 4, 5, 7–21
The quarter was declared for clear sanitary felling in 2011 with one plot of 78.5 hectares. Activists and experts directly observed and recorded on video the process of cutting with a harvester. The forest is mixed, of different ages, with a predominance of spruce. Windfall - no more than 20%. No traces of bark beetle infestation were found on the felled trees.
Quarter 2, shore of Lake Eitjärvi
Clear sanitary felling was carried out in the protected zone of the lake, which is a direct violation of Art. 104 Forest Code of the Russian Federation..

Andrzej BELOWRANIN