Towards Sustainable and Intensive Forest Management in Northwest Russia
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Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm ISBN 978-951-40-2146-6 (PDF) ISSN 1795-150X Towards sustainable and intensive forest management in Northwest Russia Vladimir Korotkov, Timo Leinonen, Maria Palenova, Andrey Filipchuk and Yury Nesterenko www.metla.fi Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute publishes preliminary research results and conference proceedings. The papers published in the series are not peer-reviewed. The papers are published in pdf format on the Internet only. http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/ ISSN 1795-150X Office Post Box 18 FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland tel. +358 10 2111 fax +358 10 211 2101 e-mail [email protected] Publisher Finnish Forest Research Institute Post Box 18 FI-01301 Vantaa, Finland tel. +358 10 2111 fax +358 10 211 2101 e-mail [email protected] http://www.metla.fi/ 2 Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm Authors Vladimir Korotkov, Timo Leinonen, Maria Palenova, Andrey Filipchuk & Yury Nesterenko Title Towards sustainable and intensive forest management in Northwest Russia Year Pages ISBN ISSN 2009 41 978-951-40-2146-6 (PDF) 1795-150X Unit / Research programme / Projects Joensuu Research Unit / 338401, Intensification of forest management and improvement of wood harvesting in Northwest Russia, 350401 Impacts of changes in Russian national and regional forest policy on forest use in Russia Accepted by Timo Karjalainen, Professor, 17.12.2008 Abstract Northwest Russia is the most important forest industry district producing 34% of the merchantable wood, 32% of the sawn wood, and 64% of the paper in Russia in 2007. The combination of the rich and diverse forest resources, rather developed forest infrastructure, long forest industy history, and geographical location close to Western markets and the major domestic markets of St. Petersburg and Moscow increase its attractiveness both from the economic and ecological point of view. The purpose was therefore to overview the development of forest management and to describe the main tendencies of forest use, regeneration, and nature conservation for Russia in general and the Northwest in particular towards an intensive model of forest management for this area, which would cover the period from just after the collapse of the Soviet Union up to the passage of the new Forest Code in 2007. In the Northwest, forest use has been rather extensive during the period 1993–2006, on average, about 40% of the allowable annual cut, which applies solely to final felling, was utlized. The actual volume of intermediate felling has been insignificant in comparison to what is needed to increase the quality of stands; in 2005 and 2006, it comprised about a tenth of the area and a third of the volume. In the area, during the period 1999–2006, almost every fifth hectare of clear felling was left without active forest regeneration measures. This development threatens the sustainability of forest management by reducing the quality of newly forming stands. The age-class structure is skewed due to this and other past forest management. More than half of the total area of coniferous forests is still composed of mature and overmature stands. These types of coniferous stands prevail in the Komi republic, and the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions, this is because of the economically limited accessibility and the significantly low-productivity of these forest resources. Although the forests of Northwest Russia are of great economic importance, the issues of nature conservation and biodiversity in these forests are still highly recognised. In 2002, 28% of the forested area belonged to different forest conservation categories of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Keywords Forest code, forest inventory, forest management planning, forest road, forest lease, thinning, forest plan Available at http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm Replaces Is replaced by. Contact information Timo Leinonen, Finnish Forest Research Institute, Joensuu Research Unit, Yliopistokatu 6 (P.O. Box 68), FI-80101 Joensuu, Finland. E-mail [email protected] Vladimir Korotkov, Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, Glebovskaya str, 20-B, Moscow, 107258, Russia. E-mail [email protected] Other information Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................5 1 Introduction ...............................................................................................................6 2 General overview to forest resources in Russia and Northwest Russia .............7 Forest inventory and forest management planning ............................................11 3.1 Structure of forest resource assessment in Russia ......................................................... 11 3.2 Forest management planning .......................................................................................... 13 4 Final felling ..............................................................................................................20 5 Intermediate felling .................................................................................................25 6 Forest regeneration ................................................................................................27 7 Nature protection and biodiversity conservation ................................................29 8 Infrastructure for forestry ......................................................................................2 9 Enforcement of the Forest Code and organization of forest management ....... References ...................................................................................................................5 Appendix 1 ............................................................................................................................. 38 Appendix 2 ............................................................................................................................. 39 Appendix 3 ...............................................................................................................................40 4 Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm Preface Preparation of this work was done within the framework of the project “Intensification of forest management and improvement of wood harvesting in Northwest Russia” (2004–2007), which was a part of the “Russia in flux”-programme financed by the Academy of Finland. Additional support for this project was provided also by the participating Finnish and Russian organizations listed below. The authors are Dr. Vladimir Korotkov from the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology (Moscow, Russia); Researcher Timo Leinonen, from the Finnish Forest Research Institute (METLA); and Dr. Maria Palenova, Dr. Andrey Filipchuk, and Researcher Yuri Nesterenko from the All-Russian Research Institute of Silviculture and Mechanization of Forestry – VNIILM (Pushkino, Russia). The authors are very grateful to Professor Timo Karjalainen of METLA, for his valuable comments to the manuscript and to Ms. Leena Karvinen for improving the quality of figures and tables, in addition to preparing the layout. Moscow and Joensuu, December 2008 5 Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute 107 http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/2009/mwp107.htm 1 Introduction After the collapse of the Soviet Union, forestry in Russia met with several reforms in its administration, normative basis, and practical implementation. This process included several re-organizations of the state forest management, numerous changes in the responsibilities for management of forests between the federal and regional levels, as well as between the state forest administration and forest lessees, while looming over the whole affair was the consistently inadequate state funding for forestry. The result was that the practical implementation of forestry operations was complicated and the number and quality of these operations were reduced. For example, in several regions in Northwest Russia during the period 1998– 2004 the annual areas clear-felled exceeded the areas regenerated by 20–30% (Leinonen et al. 2008). The downturn in forestry was closely connected to the collapse of the forest industry’s production and the Russian economy as a whole (see The World Bank 1997, Dudarev et al. 2002, OAO NIPIEIlesprom 2003), as well as the decrease in importance of the forest sector to the national economy compared with other industries (e.g. gas, oil, and metals). In Northwest Russia, in 2006 the production volumes of merchantable wood and sawn timber were still less than half of those for 1990, but pulp and paper production had recovered to almost 90% of the 1990 level; while veneer and paperboard production volumes already exceeded the 1990 levels (Federal’naja služba gosudarstvennoj… 2007). These figures indicate that the forest industry is recovering from the collapse of the past government. Despite this recovery, new investments to the Russian forest industry are still desperately needed, including