Russian forests: how many territories burn and how many new trees grow

For most people, forest fires in Russia are of little interest. Despite the fact that the fire in Yakutia burned out an area comparable to the whole of Ireland, in Moscow in July and August, the story of the arrested blogger Khovansky interested people much more than forest fires. Why worry, because on the scale of all Yakutia, only 3% of the forest burned down...

Let it all burn

Officials say that it is economically unprofitable to extinguish dense forests far from settlements, the people for the most part are generally far from these problems, as we see, for the majority - "Khata on the edge". According to the UN FAO, Europe, including Russia, in 2001-2018 in terms of the area of forest fires is inferior to North Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, and is very far behind all other regions of Africa. So maybe the problem is hyped up for the sake of the hype of journalists and bloggers?

Various studies, not only domestic ones, show that Russia is overgrown with forests. Forest monitoring from NASA shows that between 1985 and 2012, forest area increased by 4%. Subsequent monitoring until 2017 showed that overgrowth has increased - another 4% have been added over 10 years. And Rosleskhoz boasted that since 1993 the forest area has grown by 79 million hectares. Beyond the bare numbers, there is another piece of evidence that Russia is becoming greener over time - old photographs. Where there used to be fields and meadows, there is now a dense thicket of tall trees. Thanks to Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky, the discoverer of color photography, who worked at the beginning of the 20th century. Cities and villages for more than 100 years, no doubt, overgrown very noticeably.

Konstantin Kobyakov, chief coordinator of projects on high conservation value forests of WWF-Russia, notes that a fire does not mean forest destruction.

- Fire in most cases does not refer to such a phenomenon, after which the forest completely disappears. There are some areas where, due to the fact that fires occur frequently, forests disappear altogether - in the south of Siberia and the Far East there are such areas, but their areas are small relative to the areas of our forests. In all other cases, after a fire, a new one grows up, resumes on its own, this does not even require any special forest management measures.

Not everything is forest that is green

However, environmental experts point out that there is a difference between forests and forests, and one cannot just directly compare areas. Grigory Kuksin, head of the fire-prevention program at Greenpeace Russia, notes that it takes many years to fully restore forests in their former form. And it's not a fact that it will happen at all.

- Forest areas in Russia are growing only due to the overgrowth of agricultural lands out of use. That is, the areas of wild forests are shrinking. On the main areas, instead of burned-out coniferous forest, as a rule, deciduous forest grows, and this forest has no forestry value - losses in timber and accumulated organic matter due to soil are not compensated by the fact that this forest is overgrown with something. In a few years there will be some kind of high birch forest, which can be considered a forest. But this is not at all the forest that we were going to cut, and it is not at all the forest that accumulates a lot of carbon. Therefore, it turns out that during the season due to fires we lose 4-6 million hectares of forest, and because of felling - about 1 million more hectares.

Konstantin Kobyakov says that a relatively favorable picture at the official level is being formed in our country due to the peculiarities of forest accounting. Only birds, animals, insects, other creatures, and just people do not care about the statistics of the Federal Forestry Agency.

- In our country, according to agricultural standards, it is believed that if undergrowth of about 1 m has arisen in the felling and in the burnt-out area, then it already belongs to the forest according to the standards. But for most species that live in forests, for them it is not a forest at all. They begin to gradually populate when the forest is already more or less growing. This is a long process. The trees reach their original size, which was in the old forest after at least 100 years. Spruce lives for 240 years, pine - on average, the same, but lives up to 500-600 years under certain conditions. According to research, it turns out that if it was an intact old forest and it completely burned down, then it takes 600-800 years to fully recover. This is the damage: just on paper, the forested area does not change, but at the same time the forests can neither support the biodiversity of the old forest, nor perform its other functions, for example, maintaining climatic stability, protecting against erosion. Young forests perform all these functions worse.

For environmentalists, the damage from forest fires is obvious even if residential buildings are not on fire. But the authorities have a different approach to forests, which often leads to the fact that the fire begins to spread uncontrollably. The government always estimates the damage done in rubles. So, in Tatarstan, the damage from forest fires was estimated at 5 million rubles. Is it worth it to strain and take decisive measures, to call the aviation of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the sake of such a small damage on the scale of the region? In Yakutia, with their catastrophe, the estimate of 1 billion rubles is also not amazing.

Why is our forest so cheap

Grigory Kuksin notes the imperfection of methods for calculating damage and manipulating them.

- There are many methods, and they are imperfect. If we talk only about forests, then the forest fund uses a method that actually proceeds from the cost of wood, and if the culprit in the fire has not been identified, that is, the fire is considered lightning, then the method calculates the amount of damage caused at minimum rates, at the lowest cost of wood, which could be in this place. If the culprit is identified, then different multiplying factors are applied and are based on the real value of the forest that was at the site of the fire. It is absurd, but if the forest burned down and the culprit was identified, then it is as if the damage was inflicted on him sometimes 50 times, sometimes 100 times more. This largely provokes not to investigate the causes of the fires. There is always a manipulation of numbers - I want to show less - we will show less, I want to show more - we will show more. If you apply methods that allow you to calculate other damage to the environment - for example, damage to the Red Data Book species of animals, or damage to soil invertebrates, the soil itself, atmospheric air, and so on - then the damage calculated correctly for the areas that we burned this year, it can easily exceed, for example, the budget of the Russian Federation.

In accordance with the possible damage, the amount of money required to extinguish the fire is also calculated. Formally, the regions have enough money, even Yakutia. And how can it not be enough if Avialesokhrana in Yakutia receives subventions at the rate of 6.1 rubles per hectare of forest? On average, in the Far East, there are 28 rubles per hectare, and the national average is 200 rubles. But the authorities complain about the lack of people - the head of Yakutia, Aisen Nikolaev, claims a shortage of 1000 people. A logical result: recently Novye Izvestia wrote that the forest guard lost about 100 thousand employees after the reform of 2006, when forests from the forestry were transferred to the use of tenants, who are mainly engaged in felling. And as ecologists say, no one can replace a person in the matter of extinguishing forests - neither satellites, nor Be-200 aircraft.

The shovel and the hoe come first, and the planes come later.

Konstantin Kobyakov notes that people are most important, but amphibious aircraft do not always meet expectations:

- Recently, the possibilities of space monitoring of fires have appeared - this is much more effective than it used to be. Now all fires are detected much more quickly, therefore, in terms of prevention, modern technology would significantly reduce the number of people involved due to new technologies. But if we talk about extinguishing fires, then no fundamentally new technologies have actually appeared, and the need for people has remained at about the same level. Rather even more - there are more fires every year.

An interesting story with the Be-200 airplanes, on which great hopes were pinned in terms of the effectiveness of extinguishing fires, are also not justified. Moreover, not to say that this is a completely new technology. Basically, they can only play the role of supporting ground forces. This technique can extinguish and reduce the intensity of a forest fire, but not completely extinguish it - mainly ground forces work here.

According to Grigory Kuksin, firefighting aircraft is extremely important, but again, this is not primarily about large firefighting aircraft. At the forefront, again, are human resources.

- Where there is no road network, aviation, small planes and helicopters is needed first of all, we are not talking about huge aircraft tankers - this is a very expensive technology, first of all, we are talking about patrol aircraft. Until now, in the 21st century, the main work on a fire is a shovel, a hoe in the hands of a strong, qualified person. It is very hard manual work, albeit skilled and professional. Therefore, there is no way to replace people here yet. And there must be tens of thousands of them. The number of forest firefighters - both ground and aviation - in the regions must be increased. Approximately 10 times across the country.

Yesterday Vladimir Putin announced that the regions will be allocated 24 billion rubles for the protection of forests. This measure can only be welcomed. But after all, about 70 billion rubles are required in excess of the planned 30 billion rubles. And they are needed every year to prevent the spread of fire until the scale of 2021.

Two globally interconnected problems - money and people. Budget expenditures are negligible: Yakut forestries, according to the Spark system, annually carry out purchases for about 2 million rubles. This money will only be enough for gasoline, uniforms and utility services. Low salaries also do not attract people to forest protection. You can earn much more from logging.

Money against the forest

It is also pointless to place hopes on tenants who are engaged in logging. Maybe because of low margins, or maybe because of financial gimmicks, the Yakut logging companies have almost no profit. Only 8 companies declared revenue of more than 10 million rubles at the end of 2020. And half of all profits come from Expert Consulting LLC, the general director and co-owner Oleg Fedotov is listed in the telephone directory of the Forestry Department of the Republic of Sakha. The second co-owner, Sergey Yankov, is the head of the forestry department in the same department. Forests are in whose hands...

There is a conflict of interest. Does anyone else believe that protecting forests that are not even owned outweighs when personal gain is on the other side of the scale? In such conditions, timber merchants who care about the forest are like bees against honey.

It is necessary to count only on the protection of forests by the forces of the state. The tenants, even if they have the financial ability, are not at all interested in the preservation and restoration of forests. Plots for lease, the term of which is legally limited to 49 years. In any case, it will not be possible to wait for a new forest to grow - it is easier to move to a new place. And the state needs to allocate several times more money for full-fledged forest protection - about 100 billion rubles a year, according to Grigory Kuksin. The financial support of Yakutia should be increased at all, according to the expert, tens and hundreds of times.

But until the government shells out for the protection of forests, the authorities will continue to manipulate the numbers, considering the damage caused by the price of wood waste, and will be proud of the meter-long growth on abandoned fields. And people will continue to defend their homes with shovels in their hands.