30216
RUSSIAN FEDERATION Fire Management in High Biodiversity Value Forests of Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion
GEF Project Brief
The World Bank Europe and Central Asia Region Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Sector Unit
Date: July 3, 2004 Team Leader: Andrey V. Kushlin Sector Manager: Marjory-Anne Bromhead Sector(s): Forestry (60%), Central govt. administration Country Director: Kristalina I. Georgieva (20%), Sub-national govt. administration (20%) Project ID: P068386 Theme(s): Natural disaster mgmt. (P), Biodiversity (P) Focal Area: B – Biodiversity
Project Financing Data [ ] Loan [ ] Credit [X] GEF Grant [ ] Guarantee [ ] Other: Amount (US$ m): 7.90
Financing Plan (US$ m): Source Local Foreign Total Government 29.67 0.00 29.67 Global Environment – Associated IBRD Fund 1.37 4.95 6.32 Global Environment Facility 1.75 6.15 7.90 Bilateral (USAID) 0.04 0.06 0.10 NGOs (World Wide Fund for Nature) 0.10 0.04 0.14 Others 0.01 0.00 0.01 Total: 32.94 11.20 44.14
Recipient: Russian Federation Responsible agency: Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation (with regional administrations of Khabarovsk Kray, Primorsky Kray, Jewish Autonomous Oblast) Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia Address: Pyatnitskaya 59/19, Moscow 123812, Russia Contact Person: Victor N. Sergeyenko, Deputy Chief, Dept. of Forest Protection, Federal Forestry Agency Tel: (+7-095) 951-2689 Fax: (+7-095) 230-8530 Email: [email protected] Government of Khabarovsk Kray Address: Karla Marksa 56, Khabarovsk 680000, Russia Contact Person: Alexander B. Levintal, Deputy Governor Tel: (+7-4212) 32-76-17 Fax: (+7-4212) 32-87-56 Email: [email protected]
Estimated Disbursements (Bank FY/US$ m): FY 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Annual 0.4 2.0 2.6 2.1 0.8 Cumulative 0.4 2.4 5.0 7.1 7.9
Project implementation period: 2005-2009 (5 years) Expected effectiveness date: April 2005 Expected closing date: June 2009 - 2 -
A. Project Development Objective
1. Project Development Objective: (see Annex 1)
The objective of the proposed project is to strengthen conservation of the high biodiversity value forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion (ASAE) of the Russian Far East through the improved forest fire management, reducing frequency, size and intensity of catastrophic fires in the areas of the global conservation importance. The project would develop and implement policies and practices for the integrated management, monitoring and prevention of forest fires within and outside of protected areas.
2. Key Performance Indicators: (see Annex 1)
Achievement of this objective will be measured by:
(a) establishment of an ecoregion-wide integrated forest fire management system to include high biodiversity value forests currently without proper fire management regime;
(b) increased effectiveness of fire management in high biodiversity value forests through strengthened regulatory framework and interdepartmental coordination, integrated ecosystem management, and increased capacities to address catastrophic fires and their consequences; and
(c) raised public awareness and support from the local population and communities to fire prevention and mitigation through promotion of community-based fire management and alternative land/ecosystem management programs.
B. Strategic Context
1. Sector-related Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) goal supported by the project: (see Annex 1) Document number: 24127 Date of latest CAS discussion: May 14, 2002
The project is in line with the current World Bank operational program. The project objective is consistent with the current CAS document for Russia (May 2002), which specifies further support to conservation and sustainable management of globally significant natural habitats and biological resources, and the overall strengthening of the national institutional framework for environmental and natural resources management, as areas for priority Bank intervention.
1a. Global Operational strategy/Program objective addressed by the project:
The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion, in the south of the Russian Far East, is at a geographical crossroads. The area, which includes Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krays and Jewish Autonomous Oblast, covers an area of 567,000 km2 (which is larger than any Western European country or Japan), extending 1,200 km from 42 to 54 degrees North. The region escaped glaciation during the last ice age. This feature, combined with the varied topography, with altitudes rising to 2000 meters and a monsoon rainfall pattern unusual for such a northerly area, has led to a uniquely varied pattern of vegetation and made it a biological refugium of extraordinary diversity. Boreal, temperate and sub-tropical populations of plants and animals thrive together, comprising an unusual assemblage of forest ecosystems. The region has been classified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as one of the “Global 200 Ecoregions”. It includes 23 forest different formations and subformations, 150 forest types, over 200 tree and shrub species, and overall – about 2,000 species of vascular plants and an unusually rich fauna; including
2 - 3 - about 20 species of amphibia and reptiles, over 250 species of birds, about 70 species of mammals. Flora and fauna elements of the East Siberian, Okhotsk-Kamchatka, Manchurian and Hindo-Malayan origins share the same habitat in the unique broadleaved-coniferous forests of this ecoregion. The region includes forest ecosystems that have been almost totally destroyed in the neighboring countries of China, Korea and Japan.
Table 1. Existing and Planned Protected Areas and Protection Forests in the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion
Areas of Total Land Strict Reserves Partial Reserves Traditional Planned Protection (1st Area (Zapovedniks) and Other PA's Land Use Protected Areas Group) Forests 000 ha 000 ha % 000 ha % 000 ha % 000 ha % 000 ha % Khabarovsk Kray 36,530.0 839.4 2.3 3,333.1 9.1 11,385.8 31.2 7,800.0 21.4 4,674.9 12.8 Primorsky Kray 16,590.0 684.3 4.1 1,397.8 8.4 407.0 2.5 2,900.0 17.5 3,115.2 18.8 Jewish AO 3,620.0 91.8 2.5 383.5 10.6 0.0 0.0 130.0 3.6 377.6 10.4 Ecoregion Total 56,740.0 1,615.5 2.8 5,114.4 9.0 11,792.8 20.8 10,830.0 19.1 8,167.7 14.4
The project follows the GEF Strategic Guidelines and would address GEF Operational Program No. 3 – Forest Ecosystems. It addresses the Program’s objectives of (i) promoting conservation and protection of primary and old growth and ecologically mature secondary forest ecosystems in areas at risk, and (ii) ensuring the sustainable use of biodiversity by combining production, socio-economic and biodiversity goals. Most project activities would also be relevant under the GEF Operational Program No. 12 – Integrated Ecosystem Management – by promoting multiple focal area benefits of sustainable natural resource management (removing threats to biodiversity from human-induced fire regimes and promoting carbon sequestration). Other features of global or transboundary significance are summarized below:
(1) The region includes the north-western Pacific. Mountains include the Sikhote-Alin, Bureya and Dzhugdzhur Ranges. These highlands are the source of the Amur and Lena River systems which are among the world's largest, with average annual fresh water flow of 834 km3. They sustain large populations of river and marine migrating fish species, including Pacific salmon species. The viability of river fishing resources is maintained by the watershed forests. Forest fires bring about erosion and soil degradation on watersheds, causing silting of creeks and streams and altering their temperature regimes.
(2) The region borders China, Korea and Japan, whose forest cover has been largely depleted; its forests affect the air above North-Eastern Asia. Even most conservative estimates show that a carbon sequestration by the forests is 1.5-2 times higher than their emissions. Forest fires disrupt this positive net carbon balance. In 1998, a year of very severe fire in the Russian Far East, carbon emissions totaled 77 million tons in Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krays. In years of heavy fires, there are months of persistent smoke in the territory, which contribute to a higher incidence of respiratory diseases. During the 1998 fires, some pulmonary patients had to be evacuated from towns in the region.
(3) Over twenty 'small-in-numbers' indigenous peoples of the North abide in the region. The forest is a basis for their traditional nature resource use, maintenance and continuity of their mode of life. Forest fires destroy valuable areas on territories of their traditional nature resource use (11.8 million ha), depriving these peoples of an opportunity to maintain their mode of life, based on hunting and wild plant gathering.
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(4) A substantial share of the forests is still composed of virgin or, at least, undisturbed forests. Protected areas comprise nearly 7% of the region's area, and forests managed for protection purposes (so called 1st Group Forests) an additional 14%. There are proposals to increase designated protected areas further (see Table 1), and to establish ecological corridors for more effective ecosystems and habitat conservation. Anthropogenically caused forest fires damage the integrity of these areas.
The project addresses GEF strategic priorities for biodiversity conservation through: (i) mainstreaming biodiversity in production landscapes and sectors, (ii) catalyzing sustainability of protected areas, and (iii) generating and disseminating best practices for addressing current and emerging biodiversity issues. Its proposed activities would directly support innovative practical approaches called for by the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP-7) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in its Decisions VII/1 “Forest Biological Diversity”, VII/11 “Ecosystem Approach”, and VII/28 “Protected Areas”.
The GEF grant would finance costs of activities required to achieve global conservation benefits, which would be incremental to the baseline national program undertaken by the Government with support from the World Bank’s on-going Russia Sustainable Forestry Pilot Project and from the other donors (see Annex “ Incremental Cost Analysis”).
2. Main sector issues and Government strategy:
Background
The ecoregion’s extraordinary biological diversity is under threat due to the recent increases in the human population and its unsustainable uses of the forest landscape, one being the leading causative agent of most wildfires. Forest fires have tripled in frequency in the last half-century, and have increased in intensity as well.
Much of the area is remote and difficult to access. Although about 7% is protected from any intensive uses such as forest operations (about 1/3 is protected if indigenous use areas are included), most of the forest has been harvested at one time or another, changing the characteristics of the fuels and propensity for wildfires. Biodiversity uses and requires the entire landscape, and management that separates the protected areas from the forest matrix in which they are embedded, serves to isolate protected areas as fragments which inevitably become vulnerable in the absence of a landscape-level management approach – the same approach required to effectively deal with catastrophic fires of tens of thousands of hectares.
Characterization of Regional and Project Site Related Biological Diversity.
Defining the global significance of the biological diversity of the ASAE is not extraordinarily difficult given the attention to cataloging nature in the regional zapovedniks since the 1930’s, and also due to issues with its’ “charismatic megafauna” (including the endangered Siberian tiger and Far Eastern leopard) which have brought significant international attention and resources, leading to accumulating research results. For example, the two large zapovedniks in the middle of the area have been documenting biodiversity and serving as research sites since 1932 (Ussuriysky in southern Primorsky Kray), and 1935 (Sikhote-Alinsky in mid Primorsky Kray). Unfortunately, much of the data have not been summarized or analyzed, and the remoteness of the areas have impeded significant scientific study that embraces broadly representative taxa and processes. Hence, the summary of existing published or reported data below is spotty, and attaching confidence in the numbers is not possible. Nevertheless, the various reports are
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consistent with regard to the uniqueness and richness of the region, a determination accepted here and subjectively borne out in field visits.
As an example of the diversity found in the ASAE, the Ussuri River is the largest watershed within the Sikhote-Alin ecoregion and central to the disposition of key project sites. The Ussuri drains most of the Sikhote-Alin, and is fed by the Khor and large river systems to the south including the Bikin and the watershed of the Sikhote-Alin zapovednik itself. The Ussuri watershed occupies 26.2 million hectares (17% in Khabarovsk Kray, 51% in Primorski Kray, and 1/3 in China), defines a portion of the Sino-Russian border, and flows north into the Amur River – an area larger than the United Kingdom. It is a unique region of intermingled boreal and southern hardwood forest ecosystems, reflected in its being the only place where tigers and brown bears co-occur. It houses 9 conifer and 40 hardwood tree species. The Korean pine (a regional endemic) forests have been selectively high-graded (genetically superior “plus” trees – the largest and straightest, are cut) by logging. They are threatened in spite of a logging ban, and the indigenous Udege people have been granted a pine nut extraction zone for exclusive traditional harvest. The fish and wildlife constitute 1/3 of all red book species in Russia including, in addition to the tiger and leopard, the little known long-legged lungless salamander, soft-shelled turtles, several snake species, and a number of birds and mammals. Regional or locally endemic Pleistocene or even Tertiary relicts include several maples, an alder and the so-called funeral pine. Cultivation of the watershed greatly increased after the cultural revolution in China, and stabilized in the 1980’s at about 22% of the area. Unsustainable logging has been a factor in conversion of forests for over 100 years.
The threats are clear. Unsustainable forms of logging is the main agent of forest conversion, affecting more land than either fire or agricultural conversion. In fact, the forest is not generally lost through such high grading, but the effort leads to increased fuels, initial road access, secondary succession of subclimax species, and informal uses such as commercial bear and tiger poaching, or illegal hunting of game. Many areas visibly reflect the initial entry for large “cedar” (Korean pine) whose massive stumps indicate what the forest must have once looked like. The initial access for logging has cascading effects. Research in temperate forests elsewhere indicate about half of the red deer and most bear disappear at the density of roads now found in the Ussuri watershed. At about 6 km/km², the deer nearly disappear. These are hunting effects - initially facilitated by roads for timber or other uses, with direct impact on tiger, for whom the deer are the main prey item.
Clearly then, the analysis indicates a need to harmonize commercial forest harvest and the maintenance of native biological diversity – one focus of this project. Also, some additions will be needed as corridors and protected areas to fill the existing gaps in known biodiversity protection, as well as to accommodate the requirements of wide-ranging species such as the tiger metapopulation, the brown bear, and anadromous fish like salmon. For example, the mid-Ussuri of the Sikhote-Alin watershed is protected as are portions of the Khor toward Khabarovsk. The Bikin is the large watershed in the middle, tying the other two together. The Bikin not included in the proposed model areas of this project because it does not have the diversity of uses and users necessary for implementation of activities at model-area level. Nevertheless, this watershed would be an important part of ecoregion-wide project activities, such as zoning and monitoring, as the unprotected middle reaches of the Bikin system exhibit very high biological diversity, including Siberian tiger and many characteristic species of the Ussuri forests such as Mandarin duck, scaly-sided Merganser, Blakiston’s fish owl, black stork, red-crowned crane, hooded crane, the full suite of forest mustelids such as sable and marten, wild ungulates such as red deer, and predators such as Himalayan black bear, brown bear, etc. It is remarkable in being what one scientist described as the largest intact primary forest left in the Far East. However, it does house considerable resources such as timber, gold, silver, opal, and marble, and roads are being constructed.
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Such landscape-level planning and amendments to the regional protected area system are the subject of a proposed GEF project addressing an “Econet” of areas and building upon the current GEF mid-size protected areas grant.
6 Table 2. Biodiversity Values for Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion and Its Model Areas
Site Area/character Threats Biodiversity value Entire - 567,400 km²/32% - 1.8-4 mil ha 1998 burn Khabarovsk - 20 indigenous groups Ecoregion protected area/14% Kray (KK), 1998), substantial in - high biodi forest of 450-800 spp vascular plants (of 2000 in whole region) first-group forest Jewish AO (JAO), none in Primorsky = Korean pine, black spruce /broadleaf forest= 127,800 ha (8.2%) JAO, Amur- - 470-1170mm Kray (PK) 1,596,800 ha (14%) PK, 360,900 ha (1.4%) KK with 2.9% of ecoregion hi Sikhote precipitation Prot Areas burn more than forests BD forests modified (1.1 mil ha) but reclaimable. -Alin - 90-200 days Converted or logged 2/3 of hi biodiv - unique ecological relationships and processes e.g. potentially sympatric growing season forest wolf-tiger impact on prey diversity Model Area 1 2.2 mil ha (100% of -All high biodi forest in 2nd/3rd group Same as above JAO forests) forests for harvesting JAO forests -Higher than average fire rates/yr (all) Model Area 2 0.1 mil ha (0.8% of - Fires set every yr – loss of forest Very high number of declining endemics – Far Eastern leopard, Siberian PK forests) and encroachment largely for sika tiger, 4 endangered snakes, poorly known long-legged salamander, etc. South 1 Zapovednik, 2 deer farms’ grazing Unique forest of elm, oak, black fir, Korean pine. Primorski Zakazniks, 1 leskhoz - Heavy poaching - Dense human population/ development increasing Model Area 3 1.8 mil ha (13.7%) Logging roads = access for poaching. From here north through the Bikin to the Khor of KK is the area of of PK forests Heavy poaching – 10 yrs ago, tiger ecoclinal northern boreal and southern Manchurian flora and fauna – a Central 1 Zapovednik, 1 sold for US$ 1100, black bear gall unique mix. Locally endemic tertiary relicts like the monotypic shrub Sikhote-Alin Zakaznik, 2 National bladder for $110, 1 gram of ginseng Microbiota and herbaceous medicinal saxifrage (Berginia) and a number of Parks, 2 lezkhoz’s $6. Sable $56, marten $28, squirrel others. Example of faunal diversity in ungulates – 7 spp including disjunct $4 are legal. rare goral subspecies. Model Area 4 3.3 mil ha (13.2%) High annual fire rate Same as above of KK forest Poaching as above for Sikhote-Alin Khor- 1 Zapovednik, 3 Khekhtsir leskhoz’s (So KK) Model Area 5 2.0 mil ha (8%) of High annual fire rate Similar to above with declining Oriental realm biota (has tiger) KK forests Komsolmosk 1 Zapovednik, 1 - 8 -
(Central KK) Zakaznik, 3 leskhozes
8 Major Sector Issues
Weak legal, institutional and financial framework for sustainable forest management including protection
The Federal Forestry Agency is awaiting a fundamental revision of the Forest Code, the organic act that would give it long-term legal and operational guidelines to operate in the new market- based environment. In the absence of such legislation, regular re-organizations are sapping the ability to sustain a policy direction, and seriously affect the efficiency and morale of professional foresters. This is a serious impediment to the need for increasing efficiency in combating catastrophic fires in Siberia and the Russian Far East, because increased efficiency is the only answer to offsetting reduced budgets and resources. Many of the significant advances in fire management of the past two decades have become difficult to acquire and use by the Forest Service as well as by the forest enterprises. This time period coincides with the recent period of increasing fire emergencies. The two primary forest management and use groups responsible for control of wildfires are the Federal Forestry Agency and the forest enterprises which conduct operations in the forest. They are impeded by declining budgets. The Federal Forestry Agency runs at about 25% of required funding, and keeping abreast of developing technology with declining budgets is difficult. The result is both attention and capability deficits. The required response to reduced resources in such a vast and wild area, is to employ the best tools and management possible to prioritize, focus, and increase the efficiency of a response – impossible without acquiring modern tools;
Dysfunctional administrative compartmentalization impedes needed communication, coordination, and cooperation
Lack of communication and coordination between agencies responsible for biological diversity and forest operations, impedes the linking of management for forests and biological diversity. Both occur in the same sites in the ASAE and must therefore be co-managed. Currently, the Regional Fire Center does not suppress fires in Nature Reserves (although they attempt to inform the Protected Areas of fires), even if fires move into them from adjacent commercial forests. Communication and resource sharing between the wildlife agency in the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Federal and Kray Forestry Agencies in the Ministry of Natural Resources is not regular. The lack of coordinated management does not reflect the natural integration of forests and the biological diversity they house. Jurisdictional distinctions cross natural boundaries, preventing full coordination of fire detection and control.
In the same sense, command, control, and communication over the administrative and forest landscapes will be required to address fires which escape single jurisdictions, need rapid initial attack, and require massive, combined fire suppression assets such as aircraft and fire crews. Currently, no single set of procedures, standards, or modes of working exist from place to place.
Local residents have become part of the problem
The forest managers (leskhozes) are supposed to manage and regulate forest use. However, they have taken to harvesting – “sanitary and salvage cutting”, putting them in contradiction to regulation and in competition with the enterprises they are prescribing for and monitoring. This is viewed by locals as an abuse of a public trust and mandate, as articulated in the currently operative 1997 Forest Code. Failure of some forest enterprises to pay forest workers for months - 10 - of work, reduction in local public services formerly supported by forest enterprises, lack of standards and training, all further a local atmosphere of disenchantment and cynicism leading to uncontrolled treatment of forest resources or passive refusal to engage in forest rehabilitation and protection. The causative agents of catastrophic fires, the local people, do not appreciate the role they have, are cynical about the role of government or industry in the woods, have inadequate regulatory guidance, and can see no effective sanctions for illegal acts.
Insufficient knowledge of the requirements for biodiversity conservation in forest operations including harvest and fire protection
Over the 200 years of its development, the Forest Service has acquired a significant capacity to harvest and market timber resources. The need to operate in ways that foster the retention of natural biological diversity is a newer and much less understood goal. Although the approach of securing protected areas for biodiversity maintenance has led to an unparalleled reserve system, the needs of regional biological diversity exist at the landscape level. The home range of a breeding group of Siberian tigers can easily exceed 500 km². The time has arrived when biodiversity must be managed in commercial forests where most of it exists, as well as in the protected area system. This need is reinforced in the ASAE because catastrophic fires of tens of thousands of hectares threaten biodiversity and also ignore administrative boundaries and land classifications. Currently, management goals are obscured by: lack of understanding of the natural fire regime under which the biodiversity evolved and toward which forest management to maintain biodiversity may need to point; lack of understanding of the role of forest harvest systems on biodiversity, habitats, and fuels. Management prescriptions and practices need to be affordable and extensive in a large forest landscape (i.e. beyond setting aside areas or feeding game). They will need to emerge from identification of their effects on biological diversity. The effectiveness of fostering biodiversity retention over vast landscapes will depend on the degree of integration and compatibility with informed forest harvesting and forest protection.
3. Sector issues to be addressed by the project and strategic choices
Currently a one-time opportunity to save some of the most notable biological diversity of the region exists. The 25 surviving Amur leopards, and even the 350 remaining Siberian tigers, will not long survive the constellation of pressures currently confronting them. In this sense, they are representative of much of the regional biodiversity. A population of fewer than 500 large mammals is generally considered at risk, and 5000 are considered necessary for 95% confidence of long-term persistence (>1000 years). For them, the time is now. Coincidentally, an increase in the frequency and intensity of catastrophic fires is one of the threats to survival, unusual in its unpredictable and apparently increasing impacts to biological diversity.
Addressing the issues of fire and biodiversity requires new tools, new tactics, new agreements between different organizations, and new approaches to involving civil society as co- implementers of management solutions suggested by this project.
Carefully targeted project efforts are aimed at focusing scarce resources efficiently by enhanced decision-making capabilities. The project aims to achieve this by getting better information on fires and biodiversity, by using spatial and numeric models to use the information for fire risk and prediction analysis and fire management zoning, and by procuring the means to communicate information to the fire management community.
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The project will also define a management baseline – the world toward which forest and fire management can be directed to maximize biodiversity. Conditions of the presettlement forest and its indigenous management will be defined. Several tests of sustainable forest harvesting techniques to achieve such conditions while conducting commercial forestry operations, are supported by the project.
The project will develop capacity for implementing fire and biodiversity management by emphasizing and harmonizing forest regulations, enhancing institutional capacity with modern and efficient technology, and fostering an integrated command and communications capacity. The project will also reduce informal ignitions by residents through an increased presence in the field and enforcement capacity.
Finally, the project will be socially transparent and make a compelling case for positive behavioral change of citizens who are in the field and using the forest. The project will enfranchise the forest dweller, partly by promoting forest-based economic development.
C. Project Description Summary
Project Components (see Annex 2 for a detailed description)
The project will support: fire risk analysis and management zoning for the integrated command, control and communication of fire management and its role in preserving biological diversity; introduction of regulatory reforms and standards, the conduct of emergency fire control operations, and the incorporation of forest and fire management as tools for preserving biological diversity; and increasing public understanding of, support for, and participation in fire and biodiversity management through a small grants program
Component Indicative % of Bank % of GEF % of Costs Total financing Bank financing GEF (US$ m) (US$ m) Financin (US$ m) Financing g A. Integration of High 2.91 6.6 0.39 6.1 1.68 21.3 Biodiversity Value Forests into an Ecoregional Fire Management System B. Improving 37.87 85.8 5.80 91.7 3.79 48.0 Effectiveness of Forest Fire Management in High Value Biodiversity Forests of the Ecoregion C. Increasing Public 2.47 5.6 0.00 0.0 1.84 23.2 Awareness and Community Participation in Ecoregional Fire Management D. Project Management, 0.89 2.0 0.14 2.2 0.59 7.5 Monitoring and Evaluation Total Project Costs 44.14 100.0 6.32 100.0 7.90 100.0
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A. Integration of High Biodiversity Value Forests into an Ecoregional Fire Management System (US$1.68 million GEF) The project will improve decision-making by objectively focusing fire management resources to areas of highest risk by:
(a) Defining focal areas and the forest fire regime baseline. This includes: (i) narrowing within the focal areas, those areas in which the project will work as determined by the highest biological diversity and risk of wildfires; (ii) determining the natural fire regime and landscape mosaic; (iii) zoning the focal areas by GIS-assisted spatial modeling for its natural fire regime, current fire risk, and appropriate range of management responses; (iv) mapping the distributions and habitats of selected flora and fauna representative of the regional biodiversity, and adding the layer to the fire zoning map to display the risk fire poses to biodiversity. The zoning will permit pre-fire actions such as thinning to reduce the threat of wildfires. (b) Developing standards and monitoring for emergency post-fire site stabilization and rehabilitation. Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation must occur within days of establishing control of a wildfire, and accomplish the prescription of the BAER team before the first significant post-fire precipitation event. The goal is to reduce sediment runoff and hasten recovery of vegetative cover in areas of high biodiversity at risk of loss due to sediment delivery such as salmon redds (nests) which require bare cobble. This is accomplished by: (i) formulating the protocol for BAER including the constitution of the technical team writing the post-fire prescription, their qualifications, the timing of BAER milestones including due dates (beginning at post-fire declaration of control) for the prescription and its completion, and (ii) a monitoring and evaluation plan.
(c) Integration and communication of models, data, and other Information. The project will finance the development of long-range and real time fire behavior and forecast models. All data and model results, including the risk zoning of Component A: (i) will be integrated with the system of remote monitoring of the Regional Fire Center, and the forest inventory data of the Regional Hydromet; (ii) rapidly assimilate and use data from crews in the field, as well as communicate fire and biodiversity information with field crews. The project will invest in the communications equipment needed to accomplish such 2-way exchanges.
(d) Reviewing and adding to knowledge of the effects of fire on biological diversity. The project needs to (i) inventory and analyze information on the effects of different kinds and regimes of wildfire on native natural biodiversity; (ii) facilitate a series of small modeling workshops involving stakeholders. These will identify the forest system of variables, links, and feedbacks and produce such understanding in simple process diagrams. The data needs will be developed (re-developed) from cooperative construction of the conceptual models.
B. Improving Effectiveness of Forest Fire Management in High Value Biodiversity Forests of the Ecoregion (US$ 3.79 million GEF). The point of this component is to acquire the new tools and tactics to make fire control possible under stringent budgetary constraints. Although the project can not substantially increase state budgets in the forestry sector, it can facilitate strategic acquisitions and assist activities designed to enable a more focused and effective application of resources to catastrophic fires in areas of high biological diversity. This will be accomplished through;
(a) Supporting enhanced regulation of informal uses of forest products, including biodiversity. The project will: (i) assist the three regional administrations in development
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of regulations, fines, compensation, to discourage destructive and uncontrolled taking of forest and biodiversity resources, while assisting development of tax incentives to reward enterprises contributing to fire management and compliance.
(b) Support identification of subjects of forest regulation in each pilot area, through a consensual process among stakeholders.
(c) Support the establishment of standards and certification for the various categories and grades of firefighters as well as for a single standard interagency system for command, control and communication. The project will encourage this by: (i) assisting interagency coordination in developing common firefighter skill, job, and grade descriptions; (ii) establishing unified fire management procedures agreed to by agencies involved; (iii) establishing skill certification requirements and standards of training and performance; (v) supporting regulation establishing the standards and certifications; (vi) curriculum development for a set of firefighter jobs in each project year, beginning with Y1 basic jobs (e.g. entry level firefighter grade, incident commander, logistics and air operations specialists); (viii) drafting regulations addressing public access and responsibilities in fire emergencies; and (ix) establishment of Coordinating Councils of stakeholders convened by the Protected Area Manager in each focal area.
(d) Conducting emergency operations. The initial task is to plan responses in advance of fire emergencies. To do this: (i) the Coordinating Councils for each of the 11 Protected Areas within the ASAE will convene all fire units and forest users to plan and coordinate plans for detection, and initial reaction to wildfires using the zoning and other products of this project. (ii) among participants in such planning will be the 2 newly established heavy mobile units, 12 light mobile patrol units, and volunteer fire units equipped, trained, and certified with project assistance and focusing patrols in high value biodiversity forest; (iii) another project-supported effort to reduce the threat of large fires in areas of high biological diversity, is the placement of fire breaks adjacent to protected areas where the resource maps indicate minimum cultural and biological impacts. These breaks will be designed to create ground vegetation and habitat edge conducive to wildlife. The road and fire break system will be complemented with (iv) 20 fire lookouts and 44 check points strategically placed with project support; although not strictly an emergency response, (v) tests of commercially viable forest management alternatives for optimizing effects on fuels and minimizing impacts to biological diversity will be supported by the project as a method to reduce fuels, fire danger, and loss of biodiversity over the greater part of the forest fund; (vi) a timely emergency intervention is supported by the project in SW Primorsky to restore pine and hardwood forests lost to chronic fires set by local farmers each year. These forests served as key habitat for tiger and leopard, and must be restored to maintain the highly endangered cat populations. The emerging techniques and pitfalls of ecological restoration will be reviewed and adapted for these areas.
C. Increasing Public Awareness and Community Participation in Ecoregional Fire Management (US$1.84 million GEF) Over 80% of the fires in the ASAE region are posited to be human caused, making forest users an obvious target of a bottom-up project supported program of awareness raising, largely through direct involvement in a small grants program including: (i) equipping, training and certifying volunteer fire brigades; (ii) expanding the message of the role and danger of fire in schools and the media. This will project the results of project experience and investigations described above; (iii) the collation of existing knowledge of indigenous uses and influence upon the forest environment and the
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teaching of this history for the guidance it might provide in issues of fire management and relationship to the region’s biodiversity values; (iv) among ways to reduce the current views of forest residents is to encourage biodiversity-based enterprise development, initially in communities of indigenous peoples; (v) as gaps in the knowledge base become clear, a small research grant program will be supported; (vi) the results of the project-supported activities will be propagated in a variety of local, regional, and external media, including through transboundary activities with the neighboring sites in China; and finally, (vii) the impact of project activities in the regions’ population will be assessed by before- and after-project polls.
D. Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation (US$0.59 million GEF)
The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation (MNR) will have the overall responsibility for the project – primarily through its Federal Forestry Agency and the Far Eastern Regional Fire Coordination Center. A Project Interagency Supervisory Board will include also senior officials of the participating regions and provide general oversight to the project activities and ensure adequate involvement and coordination of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders at the federal and sub-national levels. Arrangements will also be in place to secure adequate involvement of local stakeholders (communities, forest users, NGOs, etc.) of the project regions and model areas (also see Section 3 above).
Implementation of the project will be managed by the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) within the Russian Far East Regional Forest Fire Center of the MNR, located in Khabarovsk. The PIU will consist of the project director, technical, procurement, accounting, and support staff. It will serve as a focal point for coordination between three regional branches and other specialized organizations of the MNR and will also have 2-person federal coordination desk in Moscow. The core team will be supported by technical specialists engaged on an as-needed basis to address specific aspects of project implementation. Monitoring and reporting on the project activities will be carried out by the PIU and covered by the project management costs. Project activities will be supervised and implementation reporting will follow standard World Bank procedures. Arrangements will be established to ensure close coordination of the project implementation with the other conservation and forestry programs in the Amur-Sikhote-Alin ecoregion.
Key policy and institutional reforms supported by the project:
Institutional reform in the forest sector is uncertain until the disposition of debate surrounding the Forest Code, and to an extent, the future of the Federal Forest Service is decided. The natural resources and fires driving the preparation of this project will not wait on this resolution. This project becomes even more important in the likely absence of any vigorous actions to address the crisis of catastrophic fire by the Center until these issues are resolved.
For the issues addressed by this project, policy discussion will lead to reforms supported by fundamental regulatory reform. Regulatory reform is a major project focus. These reforms address pressing issues of defining forest users, uses, and sanctions. They also address standards and certification, co-management and coordination required for managing landscape level phenomena (like catastrophic fire) and resources (like biological diversity). A good example of the policy development envisioned as a product of this project is the zoning of acceptable risks and responses to wildland fires. This zoning could affect land uses and financial exposure (e.g. insurance in a “let burn” zone) and will require explanation and discussion with the regional public – i.e. policy decisions will accompany zoning and regulation will follow it. This example also illustrates another feature of the project – the systematic involvement of forest users and
14 - 15 - public institutions. These departures will directly assist the forestry establishment in working more efficiently with a much broader mandate – two conditions for addressing catastrophic fire in the region.
The work to optimize commercial forest operations for biodiversity value and reduced fire danger is anticipated to lead to reform and codification if it proves productive. Objective support for operational reforms is an important condition for adoption.
Benefits and target population
The project would have environmental benefits, including development of multipurpose, landscape level approaches to sustainable forest management, reduced erosion and sediment delivery to riparian areas and aquatic ecosystems including salmon spawning reaches, reduced informal and illegal taking of natural resources, increased coordination of forest and wildlife management agencies, and improved habitat management for biological diversity; economic benefits, including direct employment on fire crews and infrastructure maintenance in rural areas vulnerable to catastrophic fires. The project will hasten recovery of a sector which has seen forest employment in 550 enterprises cut in half since the late 1980’s; financial benefits to the Treasury from increased revenues of harvestable fiber, and reduced costs of fire control, as well as enhanced tourism potential in a safer and more predictable environment; and social benefits from community participation in elements of the small grants program as well as from enhanced involvement of the forest enterprises that constitute major employers in the region. About half the people living in and around the regions’ forests believe that healthy forests are essential to their quality of life, and any improvement in their management will have an important, but “less tangible” benefits for them.
C. Project Rationale
1. Project alternatives considered and reasons for rejection:
Among the approaches considered was a simpler program focusing primarily on fire control- related procurement and training within the forestry agency through the Regional Fire Center. The decision to expand the scope and complexity reflects: (i) the need to work smarter and more efficiently, requires the adoption of complex and generally unfamiliar methods of prognostication, so some of the cybernetic expertise and tools needed were incorporated; (ii) biological diversity is managed by a different agency, and is not a familiar consideration in the management plans and activities of the forestry establishment; (iii) missing information would be useful to mainstream protection of biological diversity during commercial forestry operations and needed to be investigated for future planning; (iv) both the issues and the solutions require the engagement of the citizenry.
2. Lessons learned and reflected in the project design:
Experience with project implementation in Russia has served to underline the importance of identifying and involving key stakeholders at political, technical, and community levels. Project preparation has included an extended period of consultation and consensus building at these respective levels. This became a particularly important point, when the heretofore separate cultures, bureaucracies and disciplines of forest harvest and protection, and the maintenance of biodiversity were joined in the project as a more accurate reflection of the issues needing to be addressed on the ground. This has been reflected in the consultations with wildlife managers in the Ministry of Agriculture, and with NGO’s reflecting concerns of law, indigenous people, and
15 - 16 - education, as well as preserving biological diversity. Direct and diverse (i.e. not “sector-centric”) stakeholder involvement in the form of conceptual model development has emerged as an early entry point for substantive involvement of these diverse groups throughout the entire region. Their suggestions can be seen in the design of the project, and relations with them are excellent.
Adequate donor coordination is planned as a way of building on previous work (e.g. from the USAID and Canadian forestry projects), and harvesting their lessons learned. It is anticipated that several activities of this project will complement, and be leveraged in the schools and communities by the AID FOREST project.
Improved forest management, focusing on protection (fire management), is very important to residents in the region. The antipathy of residents reflecting their belief that forests are not being managed well, is an entry point of great value for this project and has illustrated the importance of stakeholder involvement to achieving project objectives. The policy and institutional changes required for this project will better achieve improved fire management. Forestry in ECA has also benefited form an OED review of ECA forest operations completed in 2000 in the context of a review of the 1991 Forest Strategy. The review emphasizes the importance of stakeholder participation, but also recommends expanded support for “stand-alone” forest projects as they can best tackle foreign policy and management issues, and greater integration of forestry issues into the country assistance dialogue.
E. Summary Project Analysis
Technical:
Landscape management is supported by landscape-level inventories of forest resources, with detailed planning for targeted sites, much like the planned use of pilot areas for this project. This is an approach applied in France, Sweden, and other countries. The capacity to treat regional fire suppression issues at the landscape level resides with the Far Eastern Regional Forest Protection Air Base and its Forest Fire Coordination Center, the Primorsky Forest Protection Airbase, and the local federally funded MNR forest management authorities. The capacity to deal with the entire fire management cycle such as conducting fuels reduction, burned area rehabilitation and other tasks, would employ similar skills and resources, but would also require an additional mandate and resources to generally address fire management in the landscape. The fire management approach is a thesis of this project and the additional human and material resources constitute much of the project program. Fuels management, fire suppression, and burned area emergency rehabilitation constitute the full approach to fire management required by the new National Fire Plan of the United States. The proposed investigations of forest practices conducive to both fuels reduction and biodiversity enhancement will command the skills of both local and foreign professionals as the approach is relatively new, although forest departments have been describing the uses of silviculture as important habitat enhancement tools since very early studies in Germany, and since the 1970’s in America. Likewise, restoration ecology, not stabilization or rehabilitation, is a rapidly emerging field, now with a journal of the same name. Much of the work has been done in very degraded landscapes, particularly in mining areas of the United Kingdom, although restoration of wildlands is now an active and emerging topic. In arboretum and field studies, the absolute necessity of a natural fire regime to restore modified natural environments was demonstrated.
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Environmental: Environmental Category: B (Partial Assessment)
Since a principal product of this project is the reduction of catastrophic fires and their negative impacts to forests and biological diversity, the project will have a positive impact on these resources. Of particular interest are declining and endangered species of flora and fauna that are at particular risk of extirpation or extinction, as they occupy small remnants of their original range and distribution that are vulnerable to intense fires. Evidence indicates that forest dwellers and workers are the cause of most fires. The dual approach of project-supported fire management and community awareness raising through a variety of project instruments, will synergistically promote environmental benefits. Because full understanding of normative fire regimes and related effects on biological diversity is not well known, some questions arise as to the natural or most beneficial levels of fire in support of natural biological diversity. Addressing these unknowns is a part of the project design, and their conduct will have no significant impacts. Other project activities include the installation of fire breaks adjacent to protected areas. The fire breaks will be specifically sited as a result of information developed through fire risk mapping and mapping of the distribution of biological diversity. Impacts of fire breaks on forests and biota are not expected to be significant, as these features will not involve scarification and maintenance to mineral soil, but rather to a herbaceous layer. The fire breaks themselves should enhance the effects of edge in the forests and will be studied as beneficial habitat elements for, as an example, the prey of tiger. An assessment of the impacts of the construction of isolated towers and the firebreaks, and both the mechanical and prescribed reduction of fuels, will constitute the major elements of the Environmental Assessment. No project-supported actions are anticipated to generate negative impacts and should be environmentally beneficial.
Stakeholders have been regularly consulted throughout the project’s development, since its original presentation as a concept. In September, 2003, a conference was held that brought together many of the institutional participants, including local NGO’s. During the May, 2004 Project Preparation mission, a number of groups were consulted and briefed. In addition to the relevant agencies, these included representatives of indigenous peoples of Khabarovsk Kray, the AID supported local staff of the FOREST project, the Far Eastern branch and staff of WWF- Russia, a principal of the tiger research project, a Director of a local wildlife oriented NGO, the Director of the Far Eastern Forestry Engineering Institute, an establishment for forestry education, staff of an NGO (Ecodal) legally representing environmental and related groups, owner of a forest enterprise, and faculty of local research institutes. This constituted a good cross section of stakeholder groups.
Social:
Socioeconomic Conditions: A number of distinct social groupings can be defined. In general, unemployment is high 11-13% in Primorsky and Khabarovsky Krays, but estimated to be at least twice these official figures. About ¾ of the employment is by wage earning. Reflecting available data and other enumerations of stakeholder groups, the following distinct groups constitute most of the stakeholders in topics this project addresses: The regional urban population – 76% of the people in the region live in cities and tend to be first generation in-migrants from other regions of the former Soviet Union or North and South Korea; Indigenous peoples – about 1.85% of the population of the RFE, but locally much more prominent e.g. 6% of one forest raion. The territories of traditional wildlife management occupy 38% of Khabarovsky Kray: Forest users – these include about 500 forestry enterprises, non-timber forest products enterprises, hunting enterprises, and tourism enterprises. A recent survey indicates that
17 - 18 -
over half of the enterprise owners have other businesses, but 2/3 of their income is forest related, their staffs averaging 83 employees. However, unemployment is high in the woods. Over 25% of the labor force was employed in forestry in the late 80’s, now I t is less than half of that., about 3.5% of a forest raion population. About 2/3 of registered enterprises do no work and smaller enterprises account for about half of the value of forest products harvested and sold. This is a decentralized sector existing at the margins of economic viability; Forest and wildlife managers – of the Ministries of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Emergency Management, State Land Committee and provincial administrators.; Scientific institutions - 11 in the region; Interest group NGO’s – WWF of the Russian Far East listed 21 Regional, and 13 international NGO’s with environmental interests, constituting an effective and useful block of capacity. These are the stakeholders who will influence the design and conduct, and ultimately, the success of the project. Although few statistics exist, the poverty among forest dwellers, workers and former workers are a challenge that this project can productively address. The main conflicts of stakeholders with the goals and conduct of the project are in the area of illegal taking of forest resources and enforcement of existing forest use laws, inadvertent or arson-caused fires, cynicism and antipathy toward forest management.
Main Social Development Issues. The design of the project accounts for the primary social issues leading to fire and environmental degradation: (i) poverty, particularly through generation of local employment in fire crews, patrolling, construction and maintenance (e.g. of look out towers and fire breaks), and activities such as harvest tests and plot reading; (ii) eliminating the poor public participation and existing cynicism toward current management and management practices by increasing patrolling and apprehension, engaging the residents in elements of the small grants program and building public awareness as was accomplished in the Baikal model, and through participation in the forest user Coordinating Councils supported by the project (iii) the media development element of Component C will disperse the messages generated in an areas of generally poor communication. This Component has significant support for public awareness and will target school programs as well;
Social Outcomes: The social outcomes expected from the project include: (i) increased employment in the forest through participation in patrols and fire crews, the construction and maintenance of project features, and the stimulation of artisanal skills and products for tourism; (ii) increased appreciation and support for environmentally sustainable uses and conduct leading to reduction of human-caused fire ignitions; (iii) resuscitation of culturally important knowledge of forest ecology, cosmology, and fire uses. Related benefits can be expected – e.g. the reviving of material culture (such as baskets) dependent on the forest. Proposed monitoring indicators are listed in Annex 11. At the beginning, during, and at the end of implementation these indicators will be monitored through polls designed and administered as part of Component C.
F. Sustainability and Risks
The project attempts to develop extensive, landscape-level approaches to landscape management for fire and biodiversity. Currently, some hybrid forms of management exist. For example, huntable game is encouraged by feeding as is done in the intensively managed reviers and habitat patches of Europe. The ASAE however, is a large area of relative wilderness, more analogous to the extensive temperate forests of North America. Expensive, labor-intensive methods are not as appropriate and are very costly at the landscape level that exists in the region. Efforts to grow
18 - 19 - grains and feed in undisturbed forests are not sustainable at this scale. Therefore, the project is designed with methods to impact large landscapes to ensure the sustainability of its approach. Examples include zoning of responses to fire over large areas, and mainstreaming the maintenance of biological diversity in the bulk of the forest by encouraging optimal silvicultural and harvest methods.
Possible Controversial Aspects:
Strategic - The main controversial aspect is the developing notion that both fire and forestry are not binary physical and biological qualities in relation to biological diversity. That is, they are not either “good” or “bad”, but can be both. That fire is context sensitive. (i) The idea that management can be fined tuned to accommodate some fires and marshal all resources to put another fire out, is contrary to the historic development of attitudes and management of fire in land management agencies around the world. Before 1970, fire was universally just condemned, fought, and suppressed. This project promotes zoning of the region with differing management of fire in each zone. In spite of aggrading experimental and empirical evidence to the contrary, the idea of fire management is still discomforting in relevant agencies. This project intends to clarify the role of fire in forests and biological diversity of the RFE and in particular of the ASAE. Uses could conceivably promote letting fire burn at some sites, prescribing it in others, and suppressing it elsewhere. The answers could prove difficult to accept; (ii) secondly, managing across disciplines and agency jurisdictions is also uncomfortable, and some resistance is anticipated. Moving away from a pure drive to acquire new land for protected areas (see Econet), and into commercial forestry operations as influencing biological diversity, could prove uncomfortable or controversial to many environmentalists.
Tactical - In a more tactical sense, the implementation of fire break and watch tower construction and maintenance has risks. The clearing of 1500 km of fire breaks can present a temporary disturbance to the behavior of some animals. This is an subject for monitoring and mitigation to be detailed in the EA. However, a review of such features suggests that careful consideration of their geometry and maintenance can increase habitats of some wildlife in the region, particularly the ungulates serving as prey for the large cats. This is another topic to explore in the EA. Finally, the methods of construction and maintenance of the fire lookout towers has not been determined. Twenty isolated towers at the height of land could result in serious and controversial impacts if, for example, roads were built to them and maintained. Alternatively, if helicopters long-lined the materials and transported the lookouts, very few impacts would be anticipated. Again, this is a topic to be explored in the EA.
Annexes:
1. Project Results Framework and Detailed Project Indicators 2. Detailed Project Description 3. Incremental Cost Analysis 4. List of Abbreviations 5. Project Area Maps 6. Project Endorsement Letters
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ANNEX 1 FIRE MANAGEMENT IN HIGH BIODIVERSITY FORESTS OF THE AMUR- SIKHOTE-ALIN ECOREGION PROJECT
RESULTS FRAMEWORK
PDO Outcome Indicators Use of Outcome Indicators Use an understanding of the Reduction of catastrophic and Verify the generation of enhanced effects and role of wildland fire to uncontrollable wildland fires and conditions for native biological reduce the threat to native restoration of pre-settlement, diversity in natural forests of the biological diversity in high value normative fire regimes region, leading to rationalization of biodiversity forests of Primorsky the Protected Area system and and Khabarovsk Krai’s and the management efficiency of both Jewish Autonomous Oblast of the forests and wildlife Russian Far East
Intermediate Results Results Indicators for Each Use of Results Monitoring One per Component Component Component A: Tools Component A: Component A: Develop and communicate fire Understand and map Reconstruction of baseline risk on defined project command baseline fire regime forest structure and areas Available and verifiable composition fire forecast models Reduction of frequency, Use of integrated intensity and size of fires communication and Multiple agencies using an dispatch system reaching integrated command, all fire managers in all control, and communication agencies within Measured reduction of post- acceptable standard time fire sediment delivery to from ignition rivers and streams and Each fire evaluated for increased success in rehabilitation salmonid production prescriptions Component B: Operations Component B: Component B: Develop regulations, standards, More of general public Using only rookie and agreements to better manage able to cite their firefighters with basic class wildfires and support their respective and certification measurably implementation with enhanced responsibilities and enhancing fire personnel operational capacity and relevant regulation re safety record treatments fire and forest uses Decreased time lag between Regulatory requirements fire spotting and crew and supporting courses presence on it increasing for standards and effects of initial attack certification of fire Reduction of movement of fighters fire across leskhoze and Nexus of preventative protected area boundaries structures and treatments Increased hectares of New silvicultural baseline forest and habitat guidelines for best fuels produced by project actions and habitat practices resulting in correlated New fuels management decrease in large, high
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guidelines for habitat intensity fires and increases enhancement and fire in biodiversity richness risk reduction Reduction of fire size and intensity in Protected Areas Component C: Public Component C: Component C: Awareness and Support Measurable positive Increased participation in Modification of knowledge, change in public voluntary efforts in fire attitudes, and behavior of public attitudes and decisions prevention, suppression, to support and comply with new Increased numbers and habitat creation regulations on forest uses and fire participating in project Increased sources of prevention small grant programs information on informal Increasing leveraging of uses and poaching grant money with local Development of alternative funding enterprises dependent on intact forest resources
21 Detailed Project Indicators
Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS A.1 Defining Areas and Baselines Map of highest scored Map overlays of relevant themes Can train and use GIS in time 1.1 Refine model area selection intersection of fire risk and (forest area, fire risk, biodiversity for initial fire season tests of 1.2 Zoning by fire regime, and biodiversity for landscape and value, etc) for different forest tools (maps) risk PA’s types in territory Willingness to incorporate - determine pre-settlement Zoning of fire risk ratings Map of pre-settlement fire biodiversity in fire zoning and fire regime Number of trainees in (each) regimes decisions - survey indigenous use of GIS, fire ecology, landscape A unified management design for fire ecology, conservation biology fire management planning 1.3 1.4 Develop GIS for areas Guidelines (in Russian) for with fire zones, regime, landscape management of fire danger, biodiversity and and biodiversity, to include PA’s requirements for interagency and 1.5 Train in landscape/fire forest use coordination ecology, GIS, conservation biology
A.2. Standards and Monitoring Production of BAER Number of fires rehabilitated Legislative support for 2.1 Post-fire monitoring guidelines and standards Publication of BAER post-fire rehabilitation in 2.2 BAER team composition, Employment of BAER team standards and guidelines environments sensitive to standards and prescriptions on post-fire stabilization in loss for stabilization for each accord with standards and Incorporation of emergency mapped zone prescriptions rehabilitation in emergency fire suppression funding - 23 -
Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS A.3. Integration and Communication increasing percentage of decreasing time from fire Regulatory and public 3.1 Integrate fire regime and risk accurate fire forecasts report to crew, aircraft and support and indemnification zoning map (A.1) with Fire published protocol for single engine dispatch for decisions to allocate Center MIS communications net and use nearest available crews resources to fires by zones 3.2 Integrate fire regime and risk dispatch date of vehicle procurement Ability to adapt code to zoning with Hydromet forest procurement of a mobile from initial procurement reflect regional conditions inventory data dispatch vehicle, computers, order Procurement is timely (e.g. 3.3 Develop fire forecast and radios availability of computers, of for enabling dispatch) decision support model – number of training courses in vehicle and radios to long – term and real-time (ea) GIS programming and respective targets before first 3.4 Establish single dispatch use fire season post project system for Ecoregion establishment 3.4.5 Establish and GIS programmers available coordinate for project communication Production of fire forecast system in PA’s with and behavior model by first Fire Center and fire season dispatch Increasingly accurate 3.4.5a,b Equip PA’s forecasts including Zapovedniks Field validation of model 3.5 GIS and communications Increase in interagency (e.g. courses Protected Area/Forestry/ Volunteer) mix of fire crews < Ratio of fire starts detected:fire size < cost/fire with zoning A.4 Identifying and Managing the Russian publication of Predictions of responses of Empirical or experimental Impact of Fire on Biodiversity wildfire impacts review and endangered and game knowledge of habitat 4.1 Inventory and adapt model evaluations species to fires of varying requirements of key species literature and models of Graphic diagrams of forest character and initial Capacity to work across wildfire impacts to eco/social systems with prescription guidelines disciplines and with flora and fauna variables, links, and Synoptic model of forest different social/economic - stakeholder develop feedbacks, data needs ecosystem and use with strata graphic forest, and fire models Subscription to several noted variations for forest 4.2 Develop project web site and literature and web sources of types and fire regimes
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Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS inclusion of Regional Forest Fire wildfire and biodiversity Increase in measured Center in global network of fire information biodiversity in areas and conservation information managed with fire development and exchange Hits on web site and communications received from net
B.1 Reconciliation, Compensation, Adoption and dissemination Increased apprehension and Political will to develop and Mitigation for Legally of regulations conviction of those meaningful and dissuasive Enforcable Wildfire Damage Instruction to both legal and responsible at all levels in regulation 1.1 Define regulatory system of agency communities on new the change of possession for wildfire and illegal harvest regulations and their fire, and illegal harvest of crimes and punishments implications wild products (arson, poaching, etc.) Polled (see Component C) 1.2 Develop a short course in results indicating knowledge the legal framework, of general population and regulation, and socio- forest users of regulations political considerations B.2 Wildfire Management – Listing of groups, Mailing lists for notices of Public and political Regulations, Standards, and responsibilities and products and developments acceptance of regulation Agreements authorities in fire control and Ability and desire to 2.1 Establishing the subjects of Regulatory requirements of biodiversity issues effectively enforce fire management regulation listed groups Published regulations on Support through chain of and developing agreements Regulatory requirement certification, standards, and command with them for authorities and adopted for certified fire use/access rules responsibilities fighters MOU’s from Coordinating 2.2 Establishing Regulation for Published criteria for fire Councils with agencies and professional, trained and jobs, and command, control, groups certified fire fighters and communication process Increased availability of 2.3 Establishing standard criteria on fires relevant information to for fire fighting positions, Adoption of forest use and stakeholders teams, chain of command, access rules during fire risk Measurably increased (e.g. operations, equipment, and Established Coordinating arrest records) apprehension procedures Councils of forest use and fire 2.4 Establishing and Recruitment and hiring of 3 regulation violators disseminating access and use
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Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS rules related to fire risk supervisory staff Increased public 2.5 Establishing Coordinating Published curricula and consultations/briefings Councils around the PA’s course syllabi Increased acceptance of fire 2.6 Training and retaining 3 management actions supervisory inspectors Established certification 2.7 Developing curricula, syllabi requirements for rookie fire and training materials and fighter by end of Y1 training fire crews Number of completed curricula and syllabi used in training Decrease in fire job-related accident and fatality rates B.3 Wildfire Management – MOU’s between agencies Number of certified and Ability to maintain a Emergency Operations involved in fire detection and equipped units according to procurement schedule 3.1 Develop coordinated suppression re standards, agreed standards that are Availability of potential operational plans for wildfire command, control, deployed by end of initial crewmembers response communication, shared year Availability of map 3.2 Establish heavy mobile units resources and responsibilities Number of teams with sat products upon which to for Jewish Autonomous and costs phones make siting decisions for Oblast and Khabarovsky Certified crews for Number of full fire kits/crew firebreaks, towers, and Kray deployment by first fire (e.g. full complement of check points 3.3 Establish mobile patrol season after project begins chain saws, radios, hand groups in high biodiversity Having new certified crews tools, PPE (hats, gloves, forests in the Khabarovsky and goggles, clothing and packs 3.4 Provide satellite Primorsky Krays and in the for a crew) communications for PA’s Jewish Autonomous Oblast Number of trained, certified, 3.5 Provide communication and Having capability for fire volunteer fire brigades fire fighting equipment for suppression in forest equipped to standards other PA’s enterprises as required Kilometers of fire breaks 3.6 Establish volunteer fire Placing fire breaks as constructed first and fighter brigades rationalized by mapped fire subsequent years of project 3.7 Establish a network of fire risk and biodiversity Ratio deer/km firebreak: breaks near PA’ based on locations deer/ha outside firebreak risk and biodiversity Initiating construction of at Number of towers inventories least 1/3 of the lookout constructed first and
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Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS 3.8 Construct lookout towers towers a year within a year subsequent years of project 3.9 Establish check points of project inception Number of check points Establishment of fixed and established first and mobile check points by the subsequent years of project first spring post inception Frequency of fires in and out (up to 3 km) of fire break Fires seen from satellite:fires seen /tower B.4 Management to Reduce Fuels use of detailed (resolution of distribution and instruction ability to work across and Enhance Habitat at the ~ 1:24,000 or higher) maps in use of map sets from traditional disciplines and Landscape Level of critical natural resources) project at Regional Fire Base integrate results of use to 4.1 Develop maps for 11 to manage fuels and fire to all fire teams managers of forests, Zapovedniks around rare biodiversity article with data on forestry wildlife, and biological 4.2 Locate and include in GIS, resources and fuels test with diversity biodiversity at risk in PA’s 3+ person team to design assessment of fuels (fuel and surrounding areas to trials (forester, ecologist, tbd loading) and biodiversity avoid/mitigate in fire with statistical review) % approach post treatment operations protocol, layout, and conduct to baseline 4.3 Establish regulatory of at least 2 silvicultural article with data on baseline framework for fuels treatments and 2 harvest forest structure and impacts management methods (4 tests and a of fuels treatments on - silviculture and logging control) in 3 types of forest biodiversity. system tests for fuels protocol, layout, and conduct hectares SW Primosky reduction and biodiversity of fuels management tests restored with plant and soil enhancement including control, thin, burn, composition, structure and - recreate normative stands and thin+burn in at least 3 survival over life of project in 3 types types of forest (4 tests/forest project-assisted restoration - restoration of SW type) to manage toward pre- attempts within ecoregion Primorsky habitat for settlement baseline statistical confidence in leopard/tiger constitute and equip a inventory and habitat use restoration team in SW (variation) 5.1 Short courses in ecological Primorsky, deploy to work number of guilds, number of and landscape restoration for on burned areas species in 3 guilds biodiversity appoint consultant to develop and teach a short
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Project Strategy and Objectives MEASURABLE INDICATORS OUTPUTS ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS course with field trips and syllabus C.1 Small Grant Program to Breadth and influence of Number of applicants for Ability to give equitable Support Local Initiatives small grant program small grant programs announcement of programs 1.1 Small Grants Positive influence on Number of grantees to all potential respondents 1.2 Public Opinion Polls in project knowledge base from Sectoral breadth of small to Requests for Proposal’s topics before and after before/after project surveys grant participants implementation Positive influence on Statistical decrease in behaviors reducing wildfire wildfires in project areas starts Number grants for R&D Positive influence on attitude projects toward fire and natural Schools using project- resource management produced teaching materials Biodiversity-based business starts
27 ANNEX 2
RUSSIAN FAR EAST: Fire Management in High Biodiversity Forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion
Detailed Project Description Introduction 1. Biological diversity of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion (ASAE) in the Khabarovsky, Primorsky, and Jewish Autonomous administrative regions is very high and globally significant. The intersection of Palearctic and Oriental fauna, the influence of a monsoonal climate modified by a geography of mountains and peninsulas, and the absence of ice during the last Pleistocene glaciation, generates a diversity of microclimates and topography, leading to a high diversity of landscapes, biological communities, species diversity, and biological uniqueness reflected in extraordinary endemism in an area of 567,400 km². Scientists have identified over 100 Ecoregional forest types, 2,800 vascular plants of which 800 are endemic, a boreal fauna including over 90 mammals (60% endemic) such as ermine, wolverine, lynx, black grouse, brown bear, and moose, co-existing with such subtropical derivatives as the Amur tiger, Amur leopard, and Amur wild cat. Hunting pressure, habitat change, forest fragmentation, and catastrophic fires have led to the threat of extinction of many of these. There are an estimated 350 tigers and 35 leopards inhabiting the southern parts of the Ecoregion where both biological diversity and threats to it are greatest. As an example of the coincidence of human population growth and impacts with nature, the 24 largest urban areas are in the southern third of the region which has a density of 15 people/km². The northern third has no urban areas and a density of 0.5/ km².
2. Time series records of fire in the forests of the Russian Far East suggest a recent shortening of the pre-settlement fire regime. Catastrophic fires historically occurred at about 30 yr intervals (and possibly longer pre-settlement), but in the last 50 years the interval has decreased to 10-years and the fires are of greater size and intensity, the largest in 1972, 1979, 1988, and 1998. This is traced by increases in the area burned annually – e.g. in Khabarovsky Kray from about 85,000 ha in the 60’s to 250,000 ha in the 90’s (see Maps). Forests transformed by large, intense, catastrophic fires can remain barren for years, with a reduction in the total area of forest, and degraded conditions for the flora and fauna in the area. Humans cause 80% of all these fires, the ignitions being closely related to distance from roads.
3. Fire has always been a natural element in the temperate boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere. Studies of pre-European settlement fire regimes in North America indicate that and aspen dominated forest with mixed birch and spruce-fir, can expect stand replacement fires in a range of < 35 years to 200 years, and larch dominated forests between 35 and 200 years. Areas where the boreal and deciduous forests meet in North America (Northern Appalachian Mountains, New England, and the Laurentian Shield) are analogous to the ASAE in appearance and taxa, and most commonly experience stand replacement fires between 50 – 300 years. Studies indicate that there has been no time in the last 6000-10,000 years when ancient or even late successional forest covered a high proportion of the boreal forests of the Western Hemisphere. The role of indigenous people in using fire and managing the - 29 -
landscape can be significant and is a topic of this project. American Indians annually burned over 25% of the pine and oak association of the Sierra of California. Over 20 small groups of indigenous people inhabit the ASAE region and anecdotal information indicates that these groups used fire in different ways, depending on their primary prey. Ethnographic studies are treating such relationships in the ASAE. Understanding the natural fire regime and the landscape mosaic that co-evolved with the native biological diversity of the forests of the ASAE are among the topics of this project, as they may constitute a baseline for management. Apparent higher-than- normal fire intensity is also an increasing threat to ecosystem recovery and biological diversity. Understanding the agents and impacts of unusually high intensity fires will provide the baseline conditions and best practices required for informed fire management (see Maps).
4. The protected area system of all categories, including traditional use areas, occupies nearly 1/3 of the area. These high biodiversity value forests are challenged by a number of threats including the long-term effects of fragmentation causing losses of species for genetic and other reasons, one of which is catastrophe. The process of disappearing isolated populations that were once connected and interbreeding (“metapopulations”), and eventually loss of the species is commonly seen in large, well protected areas, such as the loss, over 75 years, of 25% of the native fauna of Mt. Rainier National Park in the US. Intense stand-replacement fires are a significant catastrophic agent of forest degradation in the Russian Far East that could be expected to contribute to population and eventually, species loss.
5. A driving thesis for the approaches selected in the work plan is that no single protected area or high value biodiversity site is able to exist independent of the areas in which it is imbedded and to which it is linked by numerous physical and biological processes. The enormous challenge of addressing modern concerns for increasingly threatened biological diversity while actively managing and often harvesting the ecological communities in which such diversity is found is a global challenge. Not only are protected areas generally incomplete and subject to a gradual erosion of species diversity as described above, but most areas with native biological resources are in the developing forest matrix which surrounds and is linked to the protected areas in numerous ways (e.g. ground water, migratory animals, air masses and pollutants), including fire. Furthermore, a simultaneous spike in catastrophic fires in temperate forests throughout the world is also requiring new technologies and even new ways of thinking about forest management in all temperate forest administrations. The past generation of foresters and ecologists have developed the fundamentally new concepts of conservation biology and fragmented forest management, changing forest code to include legal responsibilities for maintaining biodiversity throughout the timber harvest cycle.
6. Fire management is not to be confuse with fire suppression or protection. As used here, it is an inclusive term embracing 1) pre-fire prophylactic activities such as risk assessment, zoning, thinning, and prescribed burning for fuels management, habitat creation, sanitation, and water management; 2) fire suppression; 3) post-fire emergency stabilization and rehabilitation, and longer-term restoration.
7. A number of the project actions are supportive of the perception of about half of the people in the area (sampled in Khabarovsky Kray) who when surveyed, responded that “ …they (forests) are an integral environment of my life”. Over 43% visit the
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forest more than several times a month, generally to pick wild vegetables and mushrooms. Local desires are Constitutionally supported (Clauses 9 and 58) which assert that “Inexhaustible, rational use and protection of the whole complex of natural resources and thrifty treatment of natural resources as the basis of existence and activities of Russian citizens.” and “Realization of the citizen’s right to a favorable environment” … “Protection of primordial environment and traditional way of living of small ethnic communities (Clauses 71 and 72). Currently under review, the 1997 Forest Code supports biodiversity preservation in demands of forest operations (Clause 54).
8. Issues of fire and biodiversity will need to be addressed at the level of the ecosystem – understanding the patterns and process of fire and biological communities and how they can be best managed. But these issues must also be considered products of recent history. In the late 1980’s a typical raion in the forest area of Khabarovsky Kray (Lazo) had 25% of the population employed in forestry and woodworking. By late 2000, participation had dropped to 11.5% due to the fractionation of larger ownerships into small businesses with reduced staff. Consequently, public finance and social services plunged (they had been supported by the forestry industry). A recent partial restoration of services has been required of forest users by the Kray. The requirement is marked by widespread evasion, poor services, and implicit support by the leskhozes, which report to the raion on harvesting and do not show all the forest users. The leskhoze provides professional forest management to the forest industry. The Forest Code prohibits them from conducting harvesting. However, the federal budget currently covers about 20% of the Khabarovsky Kray leskhoze’ costs, the remainder earned by intermediate forest cuttings on “non-market” wood, degrading goals of forest management and biodiversity protection. This is understood by locals who spend so much time in the woods. The attitude of local populations is also soured by a number of entrepreneurs who ran large debts and did not pay employee’s salaries, often employing them without contracts in apparent anticipation of this eventuality. Further increasing the perception of disorder in the woods, is the perception by most of the population that 80% of the wood is harvested in illegal operations. In sum, most people in the ASAE value the forests, are cynical about the system of stewardship and its contribution to their quality of life, and are not inclined to volunteer to redress perceived issues as a result. The public awareness Component (C) is designed to address this condition.
9. The project will involve the logging enterprises in the fire control activities and demonstration areas. There are 550 enterprises operating in the forest industry sector in Khaborovsky Kray (2001), 70% considered “small” businesses (<30,000m³/yr). These forest users, large and small are responsible under the Forest Code (Clause 83) for carrying out fire prevention and control in their areas. For this responsibility, they must develop a plan defined in the lease agreement, dispose of slash and execute reforestation. Inability to do so substantially adds to fine flammable fuels, and risk of fire. The effectiveness of these activities depend on the resources of both operator and leskhoze.
10. The current activities of the Forestry Loan include development of a satellite imagery and mapping capacity, and constitution of fire fighting teams to enhance forest protection. It also supports such management activities as regeneration in the ASAE, directly addressing forest management problems noted above. Therefore, the products of this grant will inform and complement activities of the Forest Loan.
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Goals and Objectives
11. The goals of this project are both biological and social: To reduce the number, size, and/or intensity of catastrophic fires that threaten the extraordinary biodiversity of the ASAE region. To accomplish this reduction of fire by working smarter – more efficiently with more focus of increasingly scarce resources. The project Components that will achieve this focus are described in Components A-C below and include employing enhanced technologies, adaptive and recently developed tactics, better training, and public support. To better understand the fires of the ASAE forests, their role in degrading or enhancing biological diversity, and ways of influencing both forest and fire management to enhance biological diversity over both the protected forest landscapes and the remaining matrix where most biodiversity and forest uses occur. For example, 80% of the habitat of tigers is in commercial forests overlaid with hunting leases.
12. Such an effort to understand and treat the catastrophic fires now confronting the threatened biological communities of the ASAE forest makes immediate contributions to managing the conservation of the native flora and fauna now vulnerable to absolute loss and conversion of substantial areas of habitat. Some of these species are so rare that they will not survive extended periods of research, awareness building, or waiting for economic recovery to enhance management capacity. Their issues need immediate attention. Public involvement in project activities, regulatory development of fire management and integration of communications will all contribute to increased environmental sustainability of the forest sector. Achieving the goals and objectives will also contribute to general economic growth in an area where commercial forests cover 84% of the federal and state forest, and where forest extraction is the leading resource use in Khabarovsky Kray. Activities of this project will promote rural development and poverty reduction by generating employment with fire management crews and by conducting extensive training in the five rural pilot areas. It will specifically inventory indigenous knowledge of ecosystem management and mainstream the knowledge in fire management.
13. Indicators measuring achievement of the project objectives will serve to assess the impact of the project. Indicators include: (a) enhanced effectiveness of fire suppression as measured by such indices as reduced ratios of fire discoveries to numbers of large fires, increased enforcement actions and convictions, reduced numbers of fires attacked and costs/total fires with the new zoning; (b) enhanced biological value of forestry methods, fuels management and fire suppression actions as measured by return to baseline conditions (e.g. stems/ha), and use of habitats created; (c) increased safety of fire managers and employees through training and certification as measured by accidents and fatalities/1000hr by type of work; (d) enhanced public awareness, rural income, and involvement as indicated by attitudinal polls, non-governmental individuals exposed to a project workshop or activity, and enhanced rural income from the biodiversity-based enterprise development small grants. Indicators and outputs are listed in the project logframe (Annex 1).
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By Component:
Project Component A – US$ 1.895 million Enhanced Understanding, Prediction, Zoning, and Integration of Fire Management with Protected Areas in a Regional Forest Fire Management System
14. Background. Component A fosters better decision making by narrowing and focusing finite resources on areas where the most risk exists. The areas are identified by building a model to use data describing the genesis and development of a fire, existing conditions in the forest, processing the information to predict relative risk, and then communicating that analysis to teams for pre-fire fuels management or fire suppression. The desire is to acquire pro-active tools, rather than await discovery of a fire which may be beyond suppression.
15. Relatively new tools to comply with this mandate include the employment of satellite imagery, real-time spatial modeling (GIS), and satellite communications to assess forest health and hazards as well as to deploy resources to address threats, developing innovative silvicultural systems to mitigate effects of logging on fuels and biological diversity, and breaking down historically rigid guild barriers to allow both external agencies with co-management responsibilities for resources, as well as public participation in decisions which they must support. As with conservation of biological diversity, fire management has advanced rapidly in the last generation. Since fatal wildfires of the 1980’s exposed the need to integrate fire management, training, command, control and communications conventions, and logistics across agency boundaries, the Integrated Command System has led to a fundamental reorganization of fire management and has been adopted internationally.
16. However, these advances have largely paralleled the post-Soviet transition that has led to plummeting budgets in Russia, and an inability to acquire some of the tools that have been developed. The burden of inadequate budgets has strained management capacity of the Protected Areas to near paralysis, leading to survival mode management. For example, Federal funding for the Ecology and Natural Resources of Russia (2002-2010) show 2002 and 2003 federal, regional, and external funded expenditures of 1,388 and 1,363 million Rbs, respectively for forests of the Far East Federal District. Protected Areas received 19 and 1.8 million Rbls at a time when the PA system expanded by 1 million ha. It is estimated that the Forest Service in Khabarovsk is 60%-70% underfunded, and the Zapovedniks are 70% - 80% underfunded. Therefore, Russian forestry and conservation agencies have not been able to acquire the recently developed approaches and technology to attack the challenges and impacts of catastrophic fire in high biodiversity forests.
17. As seen above, underfunding leads to a process of competition-driven triage in budget allocation, always prioritizing traditional commercial forest harvesting tied to lease agreements, production schedules, and income, forcing a break in the linking of forest operations and biodiversity protection. When addressing large fires, fire suppression goes to the top of the list as an emergency with potential risk to life, property, and commercially exploitable renewable resources. In both kinds of emergencies, economic and incendiary, biodiversity will have little standing. Biodiversity conservation must be addressed as part of mainstream forest protection - as part of a clutch of prophylactic actions before a fire emergency. These can be embedded in timber harvesting (e.g. silvicultural prescriptions and logging systems),
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fuels reduction (e.g. thinning and prescribed burns, firebreak construction) and other common forest practices (e.g. planting and tending). As strategies, this project promotes both areal as well as sectoral mainstreaming.
18. Critical, but often ignored aspects of fire management are immediate (before the next major rainfall) stabilization of slopes and riparian areas, and longer term restoration of forest landscape patterns and processes within the site’s natural fire regime and characteristic biological diversity. If, as has been contended, recent fires have been much more intense, long-term, even state-changing transformations of the forest ecosystem’s are possible. Short-term sediment delivery exceeding 3 orders of magnitude above normal, from fire-produced hydrophobic soils can be catastrophic to a range of biological resources, particularly anadromous fish such as the salmon runs of such commercial value in the region. Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation and subsequent Ecological Restoration are the final phases of the fire cycle that can be managed for retaining or restoring ecosystem values such as biodiversity.
19. The reconciliation of fire control and promotion of biological diversity values do not need to be contradictory, although they typically are. Some of the fire suppression activities typically cause as much harm to natural and cultural resources as the fire itself. The BAER prescriptions then become agents of impact mitigation, and generally need to address hand lines dug to mineral soil, the dozing of fire breaks and safety zones, retardant drops in sensitive sites (e.g. streams), helicopter landing zones and campsites. The project will finance field mapping to permit the minimization of impacts in locating fire suppression-related features.
20. Objective and expected results. The primary objectives of this Component are to establish baseline conditions in defined areas toward which to manage – i.e. the composition, structure and hazard characteristics of forest types and the biological community characteristic of them. This Component has tasks designed to link forests and their constituent biota to each other administratively and analytically in zoning, maps and models. Such tools will be used to minimize the occurrence and spread of fire, as well as the impacts to biodiversity of fire and its control. This integration will require the managers to work together as well, reducing the compartmentalization which frustrates management. The scope is ecoregional, so products will be communicated throughout the three administrative provinces, agencies of the MNR and Agriculture, academic institutions, and public nodes with a web site, dedicated lines and regular meetings. The establishment of standards and protocols will initiate the project, but products will aggrade and be distributed throughout the region, and to a degree, the country. Expected results from this Component are: Identification of historic and current fire regimes and agents of ignition; Fire risk zoning; Prophylactic prescriptions based on the zoning (fuel breaks, thinning, etc). The ability to communicate products with stakeholders.
This Component has 4 SubComponents:
Defining Area and Baselines
21. The diversity of landscapes and forest types over a large subject area typical of the requirements of a fauna with large predators, requires determination of focal areas as
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project sites. There are five widespread focal areas including the Bureinsksys mountainous taiga, the Amur Plain forest and taiga, the Primorye-Ussuri mixed mountain forests, the Amur Ussuri mixed forest Plain, and the Khasan-Khanka mixed forest-steppe of South West Primorye. The sites are representative of the range of ecological, economic, institutional and social conditions so that results from this project can be generally useful. The project will establish criteria of selection and score them to select the most representative pilot sites.
22. Fire risk zoning for the ASAE will be developed with GIS-assisted spatial modeling of risk, using such variables such as forest type and stand character, fuel load, topography and microclimate, human use, and fire history/regime in a model to categorize areas by risk of fire. The spatial model development, and acquisition of the data layers in digital form will be financed by the project. Short courses in conservation biology and managing forest fragmentation, and more extensive instruction in use of the hardware and software for GIS spatial modeling are planned for Khabarovsk, and Moscow. The study tour of the ESRI (GIS) campus and adjacent fire lab of the USFS have proven very successful in past GEF projects and are also planned. The map will benefit from experience developing similar map- based fire management tools by fire protection agencies elsewhere. It will also include a layer for the “normative” pre-settlement fire regime and stand age for the site as determined by fire scar analysis of old trees, and ash analysis of wetland/lake cores.
23. Using the fire risk maps, the danger posed by catastrophic fires will be assessed in relation to the location and needs of wildlife habitats and movements. Display of the risk fires pose to residents and forests will therefore be able to incorporate prediction of risks to biodiversity. The project will use GIS and study tours to acquire spatial modeling tools, and eventually to reconcile forestry training and practices in ASAE with such new conservation planning tools sensitive to the maintenance of biological diversity.
Standards and Monitoring
24. The project will finance use and monitoring the effects of such BAER (Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation) techniques as straw and rock check dams, straw waddles, contour felling of snags, and riparian planting, which are among the actions planned to stabilize intensely burned areas and shorten the cycle of recovery. The formation of a BAER team and training in the rapid assessment of risks, writing a BAER prescription, and setting up the monitoring and evaluation, will given.
25. As these are new approaches for the Russian Far East fire establishment, standards for the construction and communication of such models, their validation, and communication to the community of interest will be developed. The development of BAER will be accompanied by the development of regulatory prescriptions for BAER, addressing the permissible post-fire prescription period, permissible time to implement prescriptions, source of personnel and qualifications for manning the BAER teams, and constitution of the teams.
Integration and Communication
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26. The project will finance the above risk zoning, biodiversity resources, and fire regime maps of the Ecoregion with the MNR Information Management System of Remote Forest Fire Monitoring (ISRM) of the Regional Fire Center, rationalizing and integrating these two tools and enlarging the scope to include biodiversity data. Computer and software needs for satellite data acquisition and interpretation, model construction, and communication, will be coordinated with the Regional Fire Center and financed by the project.
27. The project will also establish a communications and exchange link with the forest inventory data base of the Far Eastern Regional Center for Collection and Processing of Data (Hydromet). Forest inventory data are very important to include in the risk projection analysis because forest use can be a source of fuels (e.g. slash, light and drying, and increased ladder fuels leading to crown fires). Both forest stand data and hydrometeorlogical data will be purchased.
28. Data collected and used for both risk and inventory analysis will also be used in fire forecast models. These tools will be developed as both longer-range and real-time models, the latter of use in fire suppression during the development of large fires. Real-time models have recently been developed by several fire research labs elsewhere, and have proven useful in allocation of suppression resources and identifying dangerous situations as they develop. A survey and acquisition of these models, the parameterization data needed, and adaptation of their algorithm for the ASAE forests and fire suppression organization will be financed.
29. A significant element of the project will be directed to communicating fire conditions and behavior from empirical observation of crews in the field, models, and remotely sensed data. Unification of the communication net and of the dispatch of resources is an essential step to enhance effectiveness, response time, and safety. The project will invest in the communications equipment and training to achieve this improvement across jurisdictional boundaries with acquisition of a portable communication van, computers and training (Fire Service, Zapovdniks, other elements of the protected area system, Emergency Management, and volunteer departments).
Identifying, Organizing, and Updating Knowledge of the Impacts of Fire on Biological Diversity
30. Although no consensus or “silver bullet” currently exists explaining predictable, specific effects of various types of fires (regimes, intensity, forest types, etc.) on flora and fauna, a huge literature does exist and needs review. Experience and experimentation in similar temperate systems can help in formulating the models and management approaches to best manage both biodiversity and fire in forests of ASAE. The data exist world wide, although a compilation of the North American experience (to 1999) is in publication, with the initial 3 volumes (of 5) available. A number of potentially useful models also exist. The project will encourage identification and acquisition of these tools. Acquisition and adaptation of data and of code developed elsewhere will require some training.
31. A series of workshops at each of the 5 pilot sites of the project as well as in Khabarovsk, Birobidzhan, and Vladivostok will gather small groups of stakeholders and scientists to create conceptual models of the forest-fire-biodiversity system in
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each area. These will provide a list of variables, links, feedbacks and data needs for future model development, provide a source of input for groups not regularly involved in planning, and convey some ownership in the outputs. Such workshops were the single most popular experience of a large study tour of the staffs of the GEF Central Asia Biodiversity Project. Products of the meetings will be graphic process diagrams developed on flip charts and lists of data needed. They will also feed into the small grants program proposals.
32. Some of the centers of development of fire-related models and data are networked (e.g. the European-based Global Fire Monitoring Network) and the project will strive to achieve a level of substantial subscription, contribution and membership in the net.
Project Component B - US$ 4.739 million Improve Effectiveness of Forest Fire Management in High Biological Value Forests of the Ecoregion
33. Background. The thrust of this component is to enhance fire management across institutional boundaries by providing: common regulations; a common set of standards of qualifications and performance; identical planning and communication tools; similar equipment; and common training; The pilot areas have been selected not only for their diverse and representative ecosystems and forest types, but also because of multiple jurisdictions whose boundaries wildlife and wildfires cross. Management of fire must be common and coordinated to succeed.
34. In the best of times, management of increasingly catastrophic and dangerous fires in mountainous, remote and unroaded areas is demanding. With aging and missing equipment inventories leading to unreliable communications, without timely initial attack and support, it becomes inefficient and increasingly dangerous. However, acquisition of recently developed and available tools and methods, from satellite phones in remote areas to recent and affordable advances in radio navigation, as well as information on where to focus scarce resources, enables crews to work smarter and more efficiently. Component A provides the focus and communicates it to crews on the ground. The risk models as well as advance knowledge of important natural resources will be helpful to achieve such focus. This Component provides the tools to realize focused control. This combination of intelligence focussing capability is the only feasible approach in a parsimonious financial environment. The project supports the acquisition of such tools as well as activities such as firebreak placement in particularly hazardous areas, informed by surveys of biological diversity in advance, to better mitigate the effect of their placement.
35. An important element in fire management, particularly suppression, is a well trained, well led, motivated crew. In the absence of standards – for training, physical condition, leadership qualifications, tactics, and equipment, crew capability and morale are degraded. It is commonly estimated that a newly trained crew, although safer, is about 2/3 as capable (e.g. in area able to thin/person/day) and much less safe.
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36. The reconciliation of fire control and promotion of biological diversity values do not need to be contradictory, although they typically are. Some of the fire suppression activities typically cause as much harm to natural and cultural resources as the fire itself. The BAER prescriptions then generally need to address hand lines dug to mineral soil, the dozing of fire breaks and safety zones, retardant drops in sensitive sites (e.g. streams), helicopter landing zones and campsites. The project will finance field mapping to permit the minimization of impacts in locating fire suppression- related features.
37. In some areas, for reasons poorly known, forest succession has not occurred after catastrophic and intense fires of as long as 30 years ago. In other areas, particularly along the fringe of settlements in South West Primorsky Kray near the border with China, loss of native forest cover due to repeated annual burning by farmers, has been well documented. The significance of these losses is the constriction of a once thriving tiger population, and the habitat requirements of the desperately endangered remaining 35 Amur leopards.
38. Objective and Expected Outputs The primary objective of this Component is to enhance safety and efficiency as one way to more effectively use scarce resources in a difficult, remote environment. The project will promote these objectives through this Component in five ways: 1) increasing systematic legal and regulatory support; 2) equipping and training to high standards; 3) accessing the best, most appropriate equipment for fighting fire and mitigating effects on biological and cultural resources in such a challenging area; 4) developing and applying methods and tools of forestry that reduce fuels and enhance biodiversity; and 5) developing post-fire forest restoration to reduce the lag in succession, or change in end-state (a permanent dysclimax, or unnatural, dysfuntional steady state) after some fires. The expected outputs are: New regulation and code addressing violations, fines, compensation, and incentives; The development and regulatory adoption of standards and required certifications and recurrency qualifications for fire management work. This includes beginning fire-fighter requirements with physical fitness/work capacity tests, helitak, power saw, engine operations, communications, interoperability of command, control, and communication, curricula and syllabi, equipment for specific tasks, aerial operations, environmental requirements, and other specific operational areas; Procurement of field equipment for fire management in remote areas of environmental sensitivity; New silvicultural and logging methods, prescriptions, and plans tested, published, and being implemented; Adoption of techniques of environmental restoration at South West Primorsky and other sites degraded by fire.
Reconciliation, Compensation, and Mitigation for Legally Enforceable Wildfire Damage
25. Regulation of illegal uses of forest and wildlife is inconsistent, ineffective, and virtually unenforced in any systematic or interregional way. The development of regulation, fines, compensation, and incentives such as tax exemptions for businesses contributing to compliance and fire management, is necessary to
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complement the actions of land managers who are frustrated by perceived lawlessness harmful to natural resources.
(a) The special requirements of wildland law enforcement are a subject of the training supported by the project. This task will support a short course on wildland/wildlife law enforcement and, specifically, the differences from other kinds of enforcement such as civil police. Such a course was found to be very useful in a Carpathian workshop for the UKraynian GEF Carpathian Biodiversity Protection Project. (b) This task will support the drafting of regulations codifying responsibilities and authorities in applicable areas of fire and arson, illegal taking of forest and wildlife products, a schedule of fines and penalties, amendments to the tax law and related topics.
Wildfire Management – Regulations, Standards, and Agreements
26. The project will fund the establishment of standards in many areas of firefighter skill and capability.
(a) The subjects and parties of fire management regulation need to be identified for each pilot area and the authorities and responsibilities of each defined. This will be done as a cooperative effort in each pilot area, involving agency, and NGO legal representatives; (b) Agencies will define the needed cooperative procedures and agreements between the parties identified as subjects in the coordinated and unified fire management regulations; (c) A regulation establishing and requiring certified professional fire teams and commanders will be written; (d) Regulatory requirement for standards of training, performance and re- currency necessary for certification will be developed. They will define the authorities and responsibilities of the entire force from the command hierarchy to the individual resource (crewmember). (e) The development of basic curricula for beginning fire fighters, saw teams, engine crews, aerial coordinators, helitak, smokejumper and other basic units and resources will be drafted and scheduled, and syllabi and other training materials will be produced; (f) Regulations establishing public access and responsibilities during declared fire emergencies will be drafted; (g) Councils to coordinate forest users, and leskhozes will be convened by the Protected Area Management.
Wildfire Management – Emergency Operations
27. The initial task for anticipating emergencies is to plan as much of the response as possible in advance. To this end, the project supports meetings at each of the 11 Protected Areas within the ASAE to include mobile fire units, volunteer fire units, fire dispatch, nearby forest users, communities, and leskhosez to develop, agree, and coordinate on operational plans for detection, reaction and first steps. A coordination plan will also be agreed upon. To support this process and its implementation the project will finance:
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(a) the establishment and equipping of heavy mobile units for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and Khabarovsky Kray which will focus on patrol and response in the high biodiversity value forests. The value of these units is that they are not restricted to commercial forests or protected areas and are able to benefit from the integrative arrangements (viz. 27 above) which characterize the project. These units will be similar to those procured for the commercial forests addressed by the Forestry Loan; (b) the establishment and equipping of 5 light mobile units for Primorsky and Khabarovsky Krays and 2 for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with a similar focus and flexibility as the heavy units, but of greater initial attack capacity. (c) all teams will be beneficiaries of the standards, certifications, and training enabled by the project as well as the development of a patrolling manual and provision of operational support; (d) the Protected Areas have been particularly hit by the reduction in budget (Component A para. 15), a trend serving to compound the physical challenges of mobility and communication that usually require line-of-sight transmission via radio tower construction in mountainous, uninhabited, and remote areas. The project will assist in the provision of satellite radios, and fire fighting equipment for various categories of the protected area system found in high biodiversity forests of ASAE. The man-pack radios are suitable for smokejumpers placed on remote fires, greatly enhancing their ability to communicate with the incident command and therefore enhancing their effectiveness and safety. (e) The responsibility, often observed in the breach, for fire control in logging operations, is with the forest enterprise doing the work. The other jurisdiction that is relatively incapable of addressing, and currently vulnerable to catastrophic fires are the communities imbedded within the forests. Although it may be difficult to conceive of communities so isolated that escape is difficult, in the ASAE, it is an issue. Furthermore, experience shows that forest operations and communities may provide many of the ignitions leading to fires in the region. As a public safety, forest protection, and awareness-raising effort, the project is creating volunteer fire departments to be part of the net of resources in a fire emergency. These units could be with the enterprises or communities (often many of the same people), an arrangement that continues the traditional responsibility of the forest enterprise supporting traditionally publicly finance infrastructure and projects (e.g. heating, electricity, public buildings). (f) It is important to prevent the loss of biodiversity when fires from outside of Protected Areas burn across their boundaries. The project is supporting the creation of a fire-break system designed to focus on areas near but outside of Protected Areas, suggested to be at high risk by the fire models and GIS. Fire breaks are a proven asset in fighting fires. The system will break fuels and offer safety zones for fire fighters. In this case, the design will attempt to create edge and habitat, as an option to scarification to mineral soil. (g) Early detection and initial attack are critical in prevention the escape of wildfires to catastrophic size and character. Regular satellite monitoring can only provide daily views at pixel size or larger. If hours lapse before detection, escape is more likely. The traditional system of fire lookouts is still an effective first line of defense. The project finances 20 strategically place lookout towers.
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(h) A visible presence in the form of check posts takes advantage of the nature of the road system which generally dictates using a single track for in-egress to large areas. The project establishes and maintains 44 such check points at strategic points. It should be noted that many of these efforts will have dual uses, serving as anti- poaching, anti-illegal logging facilities and capabilities as well.
28. Of potentially more long-term significance than mechanical or coercive methods essential for establishing immediate control of catastrophic fire, several simple tests of ways to reduce fuels before ignition, greatly reducing the likelihood of fire in biologically sensitive sites, are financed. For the first time, the fire management community will be developing information on silvicultural, harvesting, thinning/tending, and prescribed burning which will lead to the possibility of managing the problem by reducing it in advance through extensive and inexpensive methods. Specifically:
(a) tests made on 3 (extensive forest types) cooperating commercial forest sites and sites with hunting leases will examine alternative forestry operations such as different size even-age methods, snag/dead wood retention, and different intensities of selection beyond the high grading of Korean pine as evidence by the surfeit of stumps and stories in ASAE. Controls and treatments will be measured for costs, fuels left, and habitat created for various key species representative of local biodiversity (“keystone” or “umbrella” species and guild representatives).
(b) At the same properties, cost and feasibility of achieving the “evolutionary baseline” forest as identified in Component A (para. 13) with combinations of thinning and prescribed fire in overstocked, flammable stands, will be financed. These will also measure results for the kinds of animals described in (a).
29. The project will finance a review of ecological restoration in temperate forests, and craft a response to ecological restoration of both kinds of loss.
(a) To realize the forest restoration plan, initially at the critically fire-damaged area of leopards and tigers in South West Primorsky, the project will equip and deploy a crew (complemented by school groups through the small grants program, Component C) to do the fencing and planting. The technology of ecological restoration is different and more complex than the BAER efforts that focus on immediate stabilization. The role of seeding pollinators, selecting local provenances of trees and inoculating them with local microbial-rich soil, and the selection of initial plants, are among the issues to be discussed with a project-supported consultant. The restoration will be phased to restore the original pine forests with as much fidelity to their original composition and structure as rapidly as possible.
Project Component C – US$ 2.161million Increase Public Awareness and Support Participation of Local Populations in Fire Management
29. Background. Since over 80% of the fires of the ASAE are believed to be human
40 - 41 - caused, a clear target in their prevention is the general population who need to be useful in a robust strategy of fire prevention. This Component is a bottom-up effort to involve the citizens- stakeholders of ASAE.
30. Three activities of this Component relate to expanding responsibility for fire prevention to the citizens of the area. The tasks are to build awareness, provide educational opportunities, develop ownership of the issue and its solutions, and assess the effectiveness of these efforts. Recent and on-going experience with school programs indicate the receptivity of children to forest environment topics and absorption of ecological messages. Students receiving instruction supported by the USAID FOREST program have spontaneously created teaching groups for smaller children, and have begun “field operations” in a village near Khabarovsk. Similar successes attend a school program for indigenous peoples in 15 raions of Khabarovsk Kray. Perhaps the best indicator of potential for a small grants program influencing the behavior and effecting substantial home-grown results is from the recently completed GEF Russian Biodiversity Conservation Project’s small grant component at Lake Baikal. This effort supported 364 local projects and attracted over 80,000 participants in the Region who brought over US$ 11.5 million in counterpart contributions, greatly leveraging the impact of the US$ 2.4 million of grants awarded. From fish farming and nest building to medicinal herbs, environmental cleanup and reforestation, most of the effort is directly applicable to the needs of this project and offers a great vehicle for raising awareness and leaving a permanent legacy – the gift that keeps on giving.
30. Objective and Expected Outputs. Not only do people cause fires, but fires occur where people live and work – often the same people. This Component, provides bottom-up support for behavior modification. The Component supports many small interventions in many project sites over the region. In a sense, project success is measured when nothing happens – i.e. no catastrophic fires or species losses. This is not the stuff of nightly news or the obvious agent of attitude modification. Rather, this component is dispersed and its effectiveness will be measured in a variety of ways. The outputs will include: Number of volunteer fire brigands organized, equipped, and managed and the number and representation of these units in different stakeholders such as small forest enterprises, villages, and special interest organizations; Number of students exposed to messages developed through this project; attainment of minimum standards ranks for various student levels through examinations, field demonstration, or original contributions; original papers reporting on research of small grants selected for support; hectares treated and surviving after a year of restoration trials in South West Primorsky; biodiversity-based small enterprise starts of indigenous people; number of information brochures, web site hits, mass media broadcasts, articles published, and symposia held on the topics and results of the project.
31. This Component will develop a small grants program: Providing support by equipment, training, and integrating volunteer organizations (possibly from forest enterprises responsible for fire control on their operations) to assist in catastrophic fire suppression, and offer fuels management to “fire-proof” remote villages to minimize ignitions and preserve life and property in the event of large wildfires. The challenge is to engage somewhat disenchanted (see introduction) citizens by illustrating the need, solutions, serious coordination and related project features, and provision of basic training and equipment;
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expanding the message of fire danger, and the relation of fire, biological diversity, and landscape planning and management. Small grants to schools throughout the region should be as successful as those programs which were cited. In the continuing effort to integrate the message, field work will be encouraged at forest enterprises, volunteer fire brigades, experiments, protected areas, leskhosze’s and other project-supported sites and efforts; providing small research grants to support answering the inevitable questions of nature and technology related to goals of this project; educating and mobilizing schools in South West Primorsky Kray for restoration of the forest habitats of leopard and tiger; supporting sustainable indigenous enterprises which depend on biological diversity of the ASAE; developing the facts and telling the story of traditional indigenous management of natural resources and fire and how current practice may benefit from such knowledge. Propagating the results of the small grants and the other project components in various media – local, national, and international, and in symposia. The project will finance an assessment of its results and impacts with before-and-after polls.
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ANNEX 3
INCREMENTAL COST ANALYSIS
The proposed GEF co-financed Project on Fire Management in High Biodiversity Value Forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion would strengthen conservation of the globally significant forest habitats in the South of the Russian Far East. It would develop and implement policies and practices for the improved management, monitoring and prevention of fires in the areas of the highest conservation importance. Activities under the project would address (i) establishing of an ecoregion-wide integrated forest fire management system to include high biodiversity value forests currently without proper fire management regime; (ii) increasing effectiveness of fire management in high biodiversity value forests through strengthened regulatory framework, improved ecosystem management, and increased capacities to address catastrophic fires and their consequences; and (iii) building public awareness and support from the local population and communities to fire prevention and mitigation.
The scope of analysis of the baseline and the GEF alternative covers the timeframe of the proposed project (4 years). Geographically, the scope comprises the area of the Amur-Sikhote- Alin Ecoregion within the administrative boundaries of the Khabarovsk Kray, Primorsky Kray, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of the Russian Federation.
Baseline Scenario
In accordance with the operative National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan, and the relevant federal and regional sectoral programs, the GOR (through the MNR and other line agencies) and the Administrations of the subject regions will address selected project objectives even in the absence of external assistance. Limited additional support will also be provided by bilateral donors and environmental NGOs. Resources to be engaged to (i) establish an integrated ecoregion-wide forest fire management system covering non-commercial high biodiversity value forests; (ii) improve effectiveness of fire management in high biodiversity value forests; (iii) increase public awareness and support participation of population in fire management in high biodiversity value forests; and (iv) ensure coordination and management of these activities represent baseline costs. The ongoing Russia Sustainable Forestry Pilot Project (SFPP) financed with the IBRD loan, will provide significant contribution to the baseline. Baseline expenditures and activities are summarised below.
Baseline activities include:
A. Establishment of the ecoregional forest fire management system Strengthening of the legal and regulatory framework (GOR – US$ 0.01 mln; WWF Russia – US$ 0.08 mln); Development of the GIS-based decisional and operational support tools (MNR – US$ 0.2 mln; SFPP – US$ 0.05 mln); Establishment of the unified communication system (MNR – US$ 0.04 mln; SFPP – US$ 0.05 mln);
B. Improving effectiveness of forest fire management in high biodiversity value forests of the ecoregion
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Development of regional regulatory framework (Regional Administrations – US$ 0.01 mln); Forest fire suppression and emergency operations (MNR – US$ 6.7 mln/year (= US$26.8 million in the 4-year project period); Regional Administrations – US$ 0.09 mln/year (= US$0.36 million in the 4-year project period); Strengthening capacity for fire management in forestry enterprises of Khabarovsk Kray (SFPP – US$ 6.03 mln); Strengthening capacity for fire management in regional protected areas (Regional Administrations – US$ 0.04 mln); Improved enforcement against illegal logging to reduce threat of anthropogenic forest fires (WWF Russia – US$ 0.05 mln); Training of forestry personnel in fire suppression and prevention (SFPP – US$ 0.17 mln; USAID – US$ 0.02 mln; forestry enterprises – US$ 0.01 mln);
C. Increasing public awareness on issues related to forest fire management in high biodiversity value forests Public campaigns for fire prevention (USAID – US$ 0.08 mln; SFPP – US$ 0.02 mln; WWF Russia – US$ 0.01 mln; Regional Administrations – US$ 0.01 mln; MNR – US$ 0.04 mln).
D. Program management and coordination Supervision on the part of the Regional Forest Fire Management Center (MNR – US$ 0.61 mln)
Baseline activities will generate both domestic and global benefits to biodiversity conservation. However, under the baseline scenario the scope of the program would not be sufficient to secure adequate fire management regime and protection for a large number of globally significant critical forest habitats. Most of activities would target functionally related commercial forests, while the coverage of high biodiversity value forests within protected areas would be marginal. In particular, baseline program would not be able to (i) fully integrate – through regulations and planning instruments - high biodiversity value forests into the established ecoregional forest fire management system; (ii) build adequate capacity for fire management in high biodiversity value forests, including protected areas, under various administrative jurisdictions, to minimize the threat of catastrophic fires; (iii) establish due emphasis on fire prevention - through adequate logging and silvicultural practices and habitat management - and selective early and prioritised fire suppression, as opposed to annually addressing multiple catastrophic fires; (iv) undertake post-fire rehabilitation within the areas of the highest conservation importance; and (v) ensure active public support and community participation in prevention of fires and mitigation of their consequences. Costs and benefits under the Baseline are summarized in the matrix below.
Proposed alternative
Under the alternative scenario, the GEF will finance incremental costs of expanding the baseline program to include those activities, which generate global conservation benefits. The GEF alternative would comprise the following:
A. Enhanced Understanding, Prediction, Zoning, and Integration of Fire Management with Protected Areas in a Regional Forest Fire Management System, to include: (i) defining areas and baseline requirements for fire management; (ii) establishing unified ecoregion-wide standards and
44 - 45 - fire monitoring arrangements; (iii) operational integration of high biodiversity value forests under various administrative jurisdictions into the centralized ecoregional fire management system; and (iv) establishing the optimized habitat-specific fire management patters in accordance with the relevant long-term historic fire regimes.
B. Improve Effectiveness of Forest Fire Management in High Biological Value Forests of the Ecoregion, to include (i) strengthening regional legal and regulatory framework to prevent and mitigate for the wildfire damage; (ii) establishing unified regulations, standards, and operational inter-stakeholder agreements for wildfire management; (iii) strengthening capacity of protected areas of different categories and jurisdictions to manage forest fires; and (iv) undertaking emergency fire management operations, including fire prevention, suppression, and post-fire rehabilitation.
C. Increase Public Awareness and Support Participation of Local Populations in Fire Management, to include (i) strengthening public education and awareness on issues related to fire management in high biodiversity value forests; (ii) implementing adaptive patterns of land and non-timber forest use to reduce occurrence of anthropogenic forest fires; and (iii) broadening public and community participation and volunteer on-the-ground support to forest fire management.
D. Program management, monitoring and evaluation. GEF will finance incremental costs for the management, monitoring, and evaluation of the above activities.
The proposed alternative would strengthen conservation of globally significant forest ecosystems as it would increase their protection from catastrophic fires and improve the long-term fire management regime. The alternative would also to a great extent strengthen the operational framework for biodiversity conservation in the ecoregion and foster a greater public understanding of the needs and ways to preserve biodiversity values. In addition to the direct global benefits, resulting from the increased protection of the internationally significant forest habitats, the project will establish strategic partnerships with local authorities, land users, and communities, which would greatly contribute to the long-term sustainability of the conservation effort.
Incremental Costs
The estimated Baseline and Alternative project costs are summarized in the Incremental Cost Matrix below. The difference between the cost of the Baseline (US$ 34.69 million) and the cost of the GEF Alternative (US$ 44.14 million) is US$ 9.45 million, of which US$ 7.90 million are GEF costs. This represents the incremental cost for achieving global environmental benefits. The Alternative would be co-financed by the Government of Russia. A GEF grant of US$ 7.90 million is requested.
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Incremental Cost Matrix
Component Cost $ Domestic Benefits Global Benefits category Millions Enhanced Baseline 0.43 Strengthened inter- Improved protection Understanding agency coordination (from better fire , Prediction, and cooperation management Zoning, and across administrative planning and fire Integration of boundaries in prevention) for the Fire protection of selected forested Management commercial and areas of high with Protected some non- biodiversity and Areas in a commercial forests, landscape value, Regional by the centralized functionally related Forest Fire ecoregion-wide forests, and forests Management forest fire performing critical System management system. and/or global Improved capacity ecosystem functions. for fire surveillance and optimised planning, resources mobilization and management for fire suppression, resulting in overall reduced damage to forests from fires. GEF 2.33 Same as above Same as above, plus Alternative - All high biodiversity value forests of the eco- region, including protected areas of various categories and administrative jurisdictions, are fully integrated into the centralized forest fire management system; - Forest fire management planning and operations are prioritised with due account to the global biodiversity value of forest habitats and their natural fire
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regimes. Incremental 1.90 Costs
Improve Baseline 33.49 - Catastrophic forest - Reduction in Effectiveness fires and their damage to of Forest Fire consequences are internationally Management being addressed with important forests in High adequate suppression from catastrophic Biological and rescue fires; Value Forests operations, subject to of the availability of Ecoregion resources. Limited post-fire rehabilitation undertaken in - Improved fire commercial forests. prevention, monitoring and suppression for the - Improved selected forested protection of areas of high commercial and biodiversity and some non- landscape value, commercial forests, functionally related resulting from the forests, and forests increased capacity on performing critical the ground (in and/or global forestry enterprises, ecosystem functions and etc.) for fire (excluding protected prevention, areas of all surveillance and categories). suppression. Reduced fire damage to these forests. GEF 38.23 Same as above, Same as above, plus Alternative - Improved fire prevention, monitoring and suppression for all key forest habitats of global significance, including those reserved within protected areas of various categories and jurisdictions;
- Improved fire regime (through
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habitat management, etc.) in functionally related forests surrounding protected areas;
- Post-fire rehabilitation undertaken in habitats with globally significant biodiversity.
Incremental 4.74 Costs Increase Baseline 0.16 Improved public Improved public Public awareness, leading to awareness, leading to Awareness and the reduced threat, the reduced threat, Support number, and number, and Participation eventual damage eventual damage to of Local from anthropogenic globally significant Populations in forest fires. forests from Fire anthropogenic fires. Management GEF 2.32 Same as above Same as above, plus Alternative - Increased public participation and volunteer support to fire management in globally significant forest habitats; - Adaptive patterns of land and non- timber forest use introduced to reduce occurrence of anthropogenic fires in forests of international conservation importance. Incremental 2.16 Costs Program Baseline 0.61 Management, Management, management, monitoring, and monitoring, and monitoring evaluation of fire evaluation of fire and management management evaluation. operations in place. operations in place.
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GEF 1.26 Same as above Same as above, plus Alternative - An added focus on conserving globally significant high biodiversity value forests.
Incremental 0.65 Costs
TOTALS Total 34.69 Baseline Total GEF 44.14 Alternative Total 9.45 Incremental Costs Total GEF 7.90 incremental Costs
49 ANNEX 4
STAP EXPERT REVIEW AND IA RESPONSE
STAP Expert Review: Dr. Valery M. Neronov
The draft Project Document included 16 pages of the main text and 37 pages of three annexes I have received from the World Bank on June 19, 2003. Unfortunately the next day I went to a duty travel and was far from Moscow attending the UNESCO Workshop. In spite of busy time at the Workshop and some local complications I was very pleased to study this highly professional document devoted to Fire Management and Biodiversity Conservation in the forests of the Amur- Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion in Russia. At the end of my study I received also the Project Executive Summary (23 pages) which is really high quality and in full accord with the main text of the Project Document. Based on reviewing both these texts I came to the conclusion that this particularly project properly fits goals and programme priorities of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), particularly its Focal Area on Biodiversity Conservation including such GEF Operational Programs as the Forest Ecosystems (OP3) and Integrated Ecosystem Management (OP12). If it will be accepted for co-funding by the World Bank, I am sure 5 years of work provided for the project will be of great benefit to the conservation of unique biodiversity of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin ecoregion, its sustainable development and improving of the well-being of local people inhabiting the large territory situated in the Russian Far East.
According to the Terms of Reference for Review of Project Proposals it is necessary to focus upon some features of this project proposal. My comments are the following:
The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion is a very large area with high biodiversity value forests (6.73 million hectares), which overlap three subjects of Russian Federation (Khabarovsk Kray, Primorsky Kray and Jewish Autonomous Oblast). Results of the proposed project will be important for all of them. It is important for the success of this project that in 2003 the Russian Far East Regional Forest Fire Center has been established by the Ministry of Natural Resources and it is already operational. The Central Project Implementation Unit (CPIU) will be within this Center in Khabarovsk. In addition the Primorsky branch of the CPIU in Vladivostok and 2-person Federal Coordination Desk in Moscow will be created. Furthermore the Project will be properly coordinated with the other ongoing GEF-and World Bank-funded forestry and conservation programs in Russia.
The global significance of biodiversity of the area was confirmed in 1998, when WWF specialists listed it as one the World’s 200 priority ecoregions. Besides that conclusion it is necessary to mention here that in 1978 the Sikhote-Alinsky State Reserve (Zapovednik) was included into the World Network of Biosphere Reserves and in 2001 the central part of Sikhote-Alin Mountain Range, as the main habitat area of the Siberian tigers and Far- Eastern leopards, was included into the UNESCO World Heritage List. Another important reserve (Zapovednik) within this ecoregion “Kedrovaya Pad” (it was established in 1916!) recently was also proposed for including into the World Network of Biosphere Reserves but didn’t receive yet UNESCO certificate. Similar nomination form for UNESCO is under preparation by the Ussuriysky reserve (Zapovednik), which was established in the Primorsky Krai in 1932 (in part B of the main text, page 2 it was erroneously stated that this reserve is situated in southern Khabarovsky Krai). I believe these protected areas of international importance first of all should be defended from wildfires (may be, - 51 - they could be used as special target sites) and it underlines the global importance of the proposed project but such evaluation of them is missing in the Project Document. It will be useful to show other numerous protected areas (zapovedniks, natural parks, federal and regional refuges (zakazniks) and other types) within Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion at a separate map in addition to the map of vegetation attached to the Project Document. Distribution of protected areas as the main depositories of rich biodiversity should be taken in account when some zoning and forecasts for fire management will be elaborated.
I am not going to describe all richness of fauna and flora of this Ecoregion and its diversified ecosystems. It is really unique at the global scale and was rather well highlighted in the Project Document. Also there are many well-known publications describing this territory. I am sure that at least for five selected model areas it is possible to show (in tables) the total number of rare and endangered species of different taxonomic groups. Such very general information was presented in Table 1 only for Model Area 2. (Page 4 of the main text of Project Document) and even for this area data on Red List species (of Russian Federation or IUCN) are missing. Of course, such rare and endangered plant and animal species are distributed not only within protected areas but also beyond them and accordingly the coordination of work to prevent and mitigate wildfires’ impacts on biodiversity of both commercial and protected forests should be very efficient and cover all relevant agencies and stockholders. In current conditions such coordination is not available and in result large areas of high biodiversity forests are exposed to regular intensive wildfires.
The project at its current format will implement a comprehensive set of different actions within the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion and they should improve the management of very valuable forests and diminish negative impacts of wildfires considerably. The data from the above mentioned main protected areas could be useful for the programme of monitoring of different types of ecosystems and the justification of optimal ways to sustainable development of selected Model Areas envisaged in the Project. It will be useful also to describe in more detail form ways of a replication of the lessons learned during the Project at the adjacent territories and in other forest regions.
The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion is unique not only thanks to its rich biodiversity but also for its diverse ethnic and cultural heritage. Several groups of indigenous people inhabit different parts of the Region. I believe special attention during the Project’s implementation should be given to collecting their traditional knowledge on natural resource management and apply for conservation and restoration of biodiversity. Besides ecosystem approach and adaptive management the close attention to indigenous people is very important input into the implementing the Convention on Biodiversity in this Region, which was included as priority into the Russian National Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan adopted in 2002.
The replication of results of the Project is important in the global aspect because the covered by high biodiversity forests mountains are situated in different parts of the World and due to the global changes of climate and environment in recent years are receiving more and more attention from decision-makers and scientists. For example, UNESCO and the International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme (IGBP) are planning to begin researches of impacts of global changes on the base of mountain biosphere reserves. One of the endorsed by UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the Ecoregion mentioned above (Sikhote-Alinsky) was included into this International program. So, it is possible to use this Biosphere Reserve for the wider dissemination of the information obtained during the implementing the Project. Some funds for such type of activity should be also allocated. The project is devoted to GEF Focal Area – Biodiversity, but based on the above proposal I believe it could include some synergism with the Climate Change Focal Area, which is important for the World Bank, as well.
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Baseline situation and existing and potential threats to the Ecoregion’s biodiversity are covered in the Project Document at different scales. Their description, I believe, is more or less satisfactory but sometimes English used in the Document needs some editorial improvement since there are some sentences, which are needed additional time to understand them correctly. For example, I couldn’t agree with such statement: “the Ussuri river is the largest watershed within the Project area…”(Page 2 of the main text) or with another one: “the Bikin not an element of this Project…” (Page 3 of the main text). At page 11 (D. Project Management) there is a misprint with numbering of Sections. In the text there are many abbreviations and I suppose it will be useful for future readers to give a List of them with full descriptions. Anyhow it is only my personal suggestion.
All other components of the Project Document (Key Performance Indicators, Major Sector Issues, Project Components and Project Management, Sustainability and Risks, etc) are described in the detail form and adequately justified. I sincerely wish to future project’s field teams to put into effect all envisaged activities to control wildfires urgently needed for conservation of rich biodiversity and improving well-being of local people of the unique Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion.
Risks for implementing this project are rather low and it is verified by intensive stakeholders’ participation during the entire PDF B stage, and financial support given to this project by regional administrations. Replicability of lessons to be learned during this project itself was already mentioned above but here I would like emphasize the necessity to conduct the similar projects in two other regions in North Eurasia with rich biological and landscape diversity - Altai and Caucasus mountains not to mention about other Far Eastern areas, as Kamchatka peninsula and Sakhalin island. Transboundary cooperation with China is also very important for a long-term success of the given Project and may be in course of its implementing it will be possible to create a number of joint Model Areas (including some Protected areas) with efficient wildfire management and conservation of rich biodiversity. Such tasks to strengthen the transboundary cooperation between both countries have been discussed and supported at the Moscow meeting of the Joint Sino-Russian Commission for Environment Protection in August 2003. I believe such international aspect of the proposed project could considerably enrich its importance. May be it will be possible to include such activities at the later stage of its implementation.
So, in result of my review of the Project Document (P068386) “Fire Management in High Biodiversity Forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion” I could evaluate it as a successful one and capable to satisfying the GEF requirements. I wish to future implementing teams in three subjects of Russian Federation the efficient coordinating of their work and close cooperation with local peoples. Only under such conditions this project will significantly contribute to the conservation of unique nature complexes and different objects of the high biodiversity forests of the Southern part of Russian Far East and it will be great input into conservation of global biodiversity.
Expert of GEF STAP Roster Dr. Valery M. Neronov 2 July 2004 Moscow
52 World Bank’s response to STAP Expert Review
Comment Response The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion is a very large area The project idea was originated by the regional with high biodiversity value forests (6.73 million governments of Khabarovsk and Primorye in the Russian hectares), which overlap three subjects of Russian Far East, and they provide continuous leadership in Federation (Khabarovsk Kray, Primorsky Kray and project preparation and development. Project Jewish Autonomous Oblast). Results of the proposed implementation arrangements are specifically designed to project will be important for all of them. It is important reflect and further strengthen this regional focus and for the success of this project that in 2003 the Russian ownership. Far East Regional Forest Fire Center has been The proposed location of the main Project established by the Ministry of Natural Resources and it is Implementation Unit inside the region (within the inter- already operational. The Central Project Implementation regional Forest Fire Center in Khabarovsk) is a new Unit (CPIU) will be within this Center in Khabarovsk. In arrangement for World Bank projects in Russia that is addition the Primorsky branch of the CPIU in aimed to address the project focus. Vladivostok and 2-person Federal Coordination Desk in Moscow will be created. Furthermore the Project will be properly coordinated with the other ongoing GEF-and World Bank-funded forestry and conservation programs in Russia. In part B of the main text, page 2 it was erroneously The reserve is, of course, located in Primorsky Kray. stated that this [Ussuriysky] reserve is situated in The typo is corrected in the text. southern Khabarovsky Kray. These protected areas of international importance first of All nature reserves of the ecoregion (together with other all should be defended from wildfires (may be, they categories of PA’s) are included as project sites and will could be used as special target sites) and it underlines the serve as the hubs of various project activities, including global importance of the proposed project but such fire monitoring and zoning, environmental education and evaluation of them is missing in the Project Document. It training. will be useful to show other numerous protected areas The complete set of maps that is attached to the Project (zapovedniks, natural parks, federal and regional refuges Brief (Annex 4) includes a detailed map of all PA’s and (zakazniks) and other types) within Amur-Sikhote-Alin forest management districts (leskhozes) of the ecoregion. Ecoregion at a separate map in addition to the map of vegetation attached to the Project Document. Distribution of protected areas as the main depositories of rich biodiversity should be taken in account when some zoning and forecasts for fire management will be elaborated. I am not going to describe all richness of fauna and flora Relevant taxonomic data is available for each of the five of this Ecoregion and its diversified ecosystems. It is model areas. It is summarized in the updated version of really unique at the global scale and was rather well Table 2 of the Project Brief, and the details would be highlighted in the Project Document. Also there are included in tabular form in the updated annexes to the many well-known publications describing this territory. I Project Document. am sure that at least for five selected model areas it is possible to show (in tables) the total number of rare and endangered species of different taxonomic groups. Such very general information was presented in Table 1 only for Model Area 2. (Page 4 of the main text of Project Document) and even for this area data on Red List species (of Russian Federation or IUCN) are missing. - 54 -
Comment Response Such rare and endangered plant and animal species are Improvement in interagency and interdepartmental distributed not only within protected areas but also coordination and cooperation in fire management is the beyond them and accordingly the coordination of work core element of the project activities, especially through to prevent and mitigate wildfires’ impacts on biodiversity testing and implementation of cross-jurisdictional of both commercial and protected forests should be very operations in five model areas under Component B. efficient and cover all relevant agencies and stockholders. In current conditions such coordination is not available and in result large areas of high biodiversity forests are exposed to regular intensive wildfires. The project at its current format will implement a Description of mechanisms for replication and up-scaling comprehensive set of different actions within the Amur- of project results has been updated in the Executive Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion and they should improve the Summary, including in particular: (i) ecoregion-wide management of very valuable forests and diminish tools and guidelines on forest fire management, including negative impacts of wildfires considerably. The data those for community involvement, (ii) habitat-specific from the above mentioned main protected areas could be forest fire management plans and requirements, and (iii) useful for the programme of monitoring of different sharing and exchange of fire regime data and prediction types of ecosystems and the justification of optimal ways models with other regions within and outside of Russia to sustainable development of selected Model Areas through participation in international fire monitoring envisaged in the Project. It will be useful also to describe networks. Relevant details would be also highlighted in in more detail form ways of a replication of the lessons the Project Document prior to appraisal. learned during the Project at the adjacent territories and in other forest regions. The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion is unique not only As the ecoregion is home to 11% of Russia’s indigenous thanks to its rich biodiversity but also for its diverse peoples (including such prominent groups as Nanay and ethnic and cultural heritage. Several groups of Udege), their role in project design and implementation indigenous people inhabit different parts of the Region. I is among the central ones. Component C would believe special attention during the Project’s specifically focus, inter alia, on the collation of existing implementation should be given to collecting their knowledge of indigenous uses and influence upon the traditional knowledge on natural resource management forest environment and the teaching of this history for the and apply for conservation and restoration of guidance it might provide in issues of fire management biodiversity. Besides ecosystem approach and adaptive and relationship to the ecoregion’s biodiversity values. management the close attention to indigenous people is The Stakeholder Participation Plan (to be completed very important input into the implementing the prior to project appraisal) would include the Indigenous Convention on Biodiversity in this Region, which was Peoples Development Plan. The Far Eastern Association included as priority into the Russian National of Indigenous Peoples of the North is represented on the Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Action Plan Project Supervisory Board and plays an active role in the adopted in 2002. design of these activities. The replication of results of the Project is important in The Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve is the natural ‘hub’ the global aspect because the covered by high and focus of project activities in Model Area 3 (Central biodiversity forests mountains are situated in different Sikhote-Alin). It has already benefited from GEF parts of the World and due to the global changes of support in strengthening its capacity for environmental climate and environment in recent years are receiving education and public awareness work under the recently more and more attention from decision-makers and completed Russia Biodiversity Conservation Project scientists. For example, UNESCO and the International (P008801). The proposed Project would further build Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) are planning to upon this existing capacity of the Reserve’s visitor center begin researches of impacts of global changes on the and support its targeted activities under Components B base of mountain biosphere reserves. One of the and C to train teachers and disseminate information on endorsed by UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the fire and biodiversity. Ecoregion mentioned above (Sikhote-Alinsky) was included into this International program. So, it is possible to use this Biosphere Reserve for the wider dissemination of the information obtained during the
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Comment Response implementing the Project. Some funds for such type of activity should be also allocated. The project is devoted to GEF Focal Area – Biodiversity, The Project would yield additional significant benefits in but based on the above proposal I believe it could CO2 emissions reduction (under the GEF Climate include some synergism with the Climate Change Focal Change focal area) from (i) improved forest fire Area, which is important for the World Bank, as well. management and prevention and (ii) restoration of forested habitats. Spatial modeling and zoning of natural fire regimes and current fire risks in the model areas (to be supported under Component A of the Project) would increase international knowledge and understanding of carbon cycle dynamics in temperate forests and help design appropriate monitoring and mitigation measures at local and regional scales. Baseline situation and existing and potential threats to The text of the Project Brief was edited to improve the Ecoregion’s biodiversity are covered in the Project wording and formatting (including paragraph numbering) Document at different scales. Their description, I as necessary. believe, is more or less satisfactory but sometimes The Ussuri River is the largest watershed within the English used in the Document needs some editorial Sikhote-Alin ecoregion, but the Lower Amur watershed improvement since there are some sentences, which are also covers a major potion of the area in the North. The needed additional time to understand them correctly. For Bikin River watershed is not included in any of the example, I couldn’t agree with such statement: “the Model Areas, but is part of the overall ecoregion. The Ussuri river is the largest watershed within the Project text is corrected accordingly. area…”(Page 2 of the main text) or with another one: “the Bikin not an element of this Project…” (Page 3 of the main text). At page 11 (D. Project Management) there is a misprint with numbering of Sections. In the text there are many abbreviations and I suppose it A list of abbreviations is included in the Project Brief will be useful for future readers to give a List of them (Annex 4). with full descriptions. All other components of the Project Document (Key The Project would carry out a specially designed Performance Indicators, Major Sector Issues, Project Monitoring and Evaluation Plan that would include Components and Project Management, Sustainability and mechanisms for regular supervision of field activities, Risks, etc) are described in the detail form and including full-time regional coordinators, in order to adequately justified. I sincerely wish to future project’s ensure their timely and complete implementation. field teams to put into effect all envisaged activities to control wildfires urgently needed for conservation of rich biodiversity and improving well-being of local people of the unique Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion. Replicability of lessons to be learned during this project Early results of the project would be shared with the itself was already mentioned above but here I would like Russian and Kazakh implementation teams of the emphasize the necessity to conduct the similar projects in UNDP/GEF Altay-Sayan Ecoregional Project, as well as two other regions in North Eurasia with rich biological with the UNDP/GEF projects in Kamchatka and the and landscape diversity - Altai and Caucasus mountains USAID Forest Resources and Technologies Project in not to mention about other Far Eastern areas, as Sakhalin. A newly proposed GEF project for Econet Kamchatka peninsula and Sakhalin island. Development in Priority Ecoregions of Russia, if approved, would be in a position to implement lessons of this Project in the Caucasus Ecoregion. Transboundary cooperation with China is also very The Project dwells substantially on ecoregional important for a long-term success of the given Project conservation activities developed and supported by and may be in course of its implementing it will be WWF, including their transboundary partnership
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Comment Response possible to create a number of joint Model Areas programs between the neighboring protected areas in (including some Protected areas) with efficient wildfire Russia and China. The Project’s Component C would management and conservation of rich biodiversity. Such support, through thematic small grants, a number of tasks to strengthen the transboundary cooperation community-level and regional initiatives, some of which between both countries have been discussed and could be targeted towards further strengthening these supported at the Moscow meeting of the Joint Sino- transboundary partnerships in fire management and Russian Commission for Environment Protection in biodiversity conservation. This aspect would be August 2003. I believe such international aspect of the specifically included in the proposed list of grant themes proposed project could considerably enrich its under Component C. importance. May be it will be possible to include such activities at the later stage of its implementation. So, in result of my review of the Project Document Tight inter-regional coordination and direct involvement (P068386) “Fire Management in High Biodiversity of local stakeholders are the two fundamental elements Forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion” I could of the Project design. They would be enforced by the evaluate it as a successful one and capable to satisfying respective implementation structure that includes (i) a the GEF requirements. I wish to future implementing PIU located within the Inter-Regional Fire Coordination teams in three subjects of Russian Federation the Center, and (ii) specific focus of project activities on five efficient coordinating of their work and close Model Areas with direct participation of municipalities, cooperation with local peoples. Only under such local communities and businesses. conditions this project will significantly contribute to the conservation of unique nature complexes and different objects of the high biodiversity forests of the Southern part of Russian Far East and it will be great input into conservation of global biodiversity.
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ANNEX 5
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
ASAE - Amur-Sikhote-Alin ecoregion BAER - burned area emergency rehabilitation CAS - Country Assistance Strategy COP - Conference of the Parties EA - Environmental Assessment FOREST - Forest Resources and Technologies Project FY - fiscal year GEF - Global Environment Facility GIS - geographic information system GOR - Government of Russia IBRD - International Bank for Reconstruction and Development JAO - Jewish Autonomous Oblast KK - Khabarovsk Kray MIS - management information system MNR - Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia NGO - nongovernmental organization PA - protected area PDO - project development objective PISB - Project Interagency Supervisory Board PIU - Project Implementation Unit PK - Primorsky Kray SFPP - Sustainable Forestry Pilot Project USAID - United States Agency for International Development WWF - World Wide Fund for Nature
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