FELL BARK BEETLE, FELLOWS
or Peculiarities of the business in the National Park

The article by Oleg Chernov,
Published in «Nationalnaya Economicheskaya Gazeta» (The National Economic Newspaper) Newspaper, #1,
January 08, 2002

The problem that will be raised in this article is about «felling» of bark beetle and cutting of trees. The trees are cut literally, in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. That was the reason why a group of journalists, the participants of the press-seminar organized by the Department of Specially Protected Natural Territories and Nature Use within the Property Management Department of the President, was invited to take a trip to the snow-covered forest.

The trip was naturally not to study the problems of fighting pests or developing the wood-processing technology. Its aim was to show the journalists the inevitability of felling to be done in the National Park, so that journalists, in turn, made that inevitability public.

The problem is as follows. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha has come under an infestation of the spruce bark beetle which spread over a huge area of it destroying spruce. According to the specialists though, among which were the ones involved in forest monitoring and protection, representatives of a special inspection team of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection, the Administrative Department of the President, including four Philosophu Doctors, there is nothing unusual about the bark beetle appearing in Pushcha. Moreover, they say it always lived there. Adolf Korchik, Professor of the Polish Forest Institute, agrees with it believing that «gdzie swierk, tam i zuk» («The beetle lives where spruce is»).

So that's just the way the ecosystem is. The problem appears to be not in the presence of the beetle, but in its huge numbers.

The fight with the pests has been always going on permanently. Episodes of infestations are also not a surprise. They are repeated with a certain periodicity, which coincides, as some researchers say, with a 22-year solar activity cycle which brings about cataclysms like droughts or strong, hurricane winds. However, man's impact is also noticeable and adds to the problem. The bark beetle infestation of 1965–1967, for example, affected almost all spruce forests in the Pushcha and was caused mainly by the land-reclamation in it and nearby areas. Reclamation dried many swamps and marshlands together with rivulets and small streams which gave the Pushcha their invigorating moisture. The fact that spruce has a close-to-surface root system is well-known since one's school-days. If there is not enough moisture, the root system makes spruce very vulnerable to pests because the tree produces less protective resin. Large numbers of pests, in such cases, are controlled by chemical etch or various traps like, for example, weakened spruce trees brought and put as a «bait» for the beetle to be taken away when the latter makes it his home. All these measures are effective if combined with the sanitary felling of trees infested by beetles. Moreover, the forest-protection studies and practice show the just-infested by the beetle trees must be cut down in the first instance.

But that has recently become a point of major disagreement in Pushcha.

As the number of spruce in Pushcha continues to dwindle, some specialists say the felling is justified only for trees which are «visibly», completely dry. On the other hand, their more radically-minded colleagues assert that a tree infested with the beetle is bound to die anyway, because the beetle spoils the bast of spruce during the first days it got into it. The spruce which is left in the forest becomes a pest-breeder. It helps the beetle to multiply and infest other trees. That was proved by the bitter experience of 1994–1997, when over 230,000 cubic metres of spruce dead on the Pushcha land of more than 10,000 hectares, and only the timely felling made it possible to bring the infestation under control.

The neighboring from Poland, in this regard, do the sanitary felling of spruce as soon as the source of the pest-home is revealed, and if the beetle moves on from the infested tree to other trees by an oversight of a forest ranger, he is forced to leave his job.

At present, following the arid springtime of the last two years, Belovezhskaya Pushcha is infested by the spruce beetle again. So the disagreement over «felling or not felling» has been given another boost.

At least 3 commissions visited the Belovezhskaya Pushcha to learn the current situation, but they failed to find a one-size-fits-all approach to it. The situation got worse when opposing scientists were joined by their amateur supporters. Following that, in the press the «spruce» disagreement over the Pushcha was even linked to the election campaign. There were also some publications about the forest management «taking over» the park resources.

When Nikolai Bambiza became the director of the National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha», he provoked a lot of concern, as being a good economic manager he bought a new high-capacity power-saw bench and many people thought he would let cut down trees under the pretence of fighting the pests.

The truth is that Mr. Bambiza has really shown himself as a good economic manager and a knowledgeable, resolute conservationist. Having been the head of the Pripyatski reserve, it took him little time to put an end to poaching in the local forest and to restore the protected regime. In the Belovezhskaya Pushcha he started to reinforce professional discipline and had to dismiss a number of workers. As for the new power-saw bench for the park, it was bought on credit because the operating period of the old one had long been expired.

It is also true here that driving along snow-covered roads in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha that day we would never see any signs of Pushcha being «took over» by the forest management. Instead, there were many dead spruce trees with ugly bark scabs. They would be found not just in the reserved area, but in many parts intended for the rational, recreational, and economical use in Pushcha. The wood of trees which are left «standing» in that condition may loose its quality and value in no time and, as the warm season sets in, it is an attractive object for other pests which replace the beetle. One, truly, does not need to be a specialist to come out in favour of the «radical» advice to cut down such trees, after having seen them in Pushcha.

It should be said though, that even without «special» orders the sanitary felling and forest cleaning have been going and continue to be going on in all zones of the Park except for the strictly reserved one, available only for research while economic activity is forbidden there.

Moreover, a target figure of 60,000 cubic metres is annually set for such felling. Is it big or small? In Nikolai Bambiza's opinion it is sooner a small figure. Of course, he thinks so not because of a high-capacity of the new power-saw bench. The reason is that the «sanitary felling front area» is much bigger and the Pushcha is more and more «cluttered up», as it is getting old and trees are dying. Every year there are about 240,000 cubic metres of dead wood, not including dead spruces which rise at times of an infestation.

Thus, the woodworking shop has always been operating in the Park, producing planks, lining, and once, even parquet. Although, as the director says, the biggest profit now is gained from tourism — that year the Belovezhskaya Pushcha hosted 60,000 people, including 10,000 foreigners, and selling of hunting licenses alone amounted to 250,000 DM (Deutsch Marks) — it is foolish to stop processing the wood, even of low-quality, from the sanitary felling. Nowadays every earned Rouble is counted, as all services in the Park, except for the forest conservation, the research department and the administration, are self-supporting. It is the efficiency of all services including the timber processing plant that volume and time of forest protection work depends on in the Pushcha.

One also has to call in the credits for the power-saw bench, find money to develop and furnish the tourist facilities, especially hotels.

For comparison: for every 10,000 hectares of forest area the Polish part of Pushcha can offer hotel rooms for 1400 people, whereas the Belarusian side of Pushcha with the area of about 100,000 hectares has hotel rooms for only 280 people. Moreover, many of the Belarusian hotels do not correspond to high standards which are a norm in the rest of the world.

So there is still need to build facilities, to tread out tourist routes and, certainly, provide funds to efficiently support animals in the forest, including in particular the feeding up of bison, wild boar, deers in winter.

That is why entrepreneurial Mr. Bambiza bought about 40,000 cubic metres of industrial timber from the special game forest ground of the Pripyatski Reserve and some other places for making quality wood materials and exporting them abroad at the world market prices.

But let's recall the bark beetle. While all that hustle and bustle of deciding for or against felling, and Bambiza's defending his right for the efficient forest management, the beetle and other pests were doing their job in Pushcha. Thus, 5,000 — 7,000 cubic metres of spruce destroyed by the beetle in spring by autumn and spread to big area had been increased to 70,000 cubic metres. «Good» job on behalf of opposing parties for Belovezhskaya Pushcha!

At the end, here are some thoughts, prompted unintentionally by our neighbours« experience. For example, they use almost all area of the Pushcha, about 60,000 hectares, for economic purposes. That is the »poor« Poles make use of their forest resources. The strictly reserved area of the Polish part of Pushcha used to be 5,600 hectares and has just recently been augmented to 10,000 hectares. By the way, the sanitary felling of trees infected by bark beetles in this area in Poland is carried out duly. If one considers the strictly reserved area of the Belarusian Pushcha, which is 17,000 hectares, the felling there is strictly forbidden. As a result, a lot of trees fall naturally and the forest is old and really cluttered up, full of wind-fall trees. A paradise for the beetle!

The story, of course, is not to show which side, the Polish or the Belarusian, preserves the forest and keeps the reserved regime better. Nonetheless, some figures aired at the seminar were striking — from the 1960s to the present time, for example, the beetle has destroyed about 14,000 hectares of spruce in Pushcha. The affected places are being overgrown with grass and turf and need to be recovered.

Or need not?

Here and all by itself springs up the question of how wilderness protection is to be viewed when acid rains, local and global man-made disasters, like Chernobyl, for example, are a common thing?

Who can answer this question?

When the hunting season opens in the forests adjoining Pushcha, clever animals, including wild ungulates, hide themselves in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, often becoming a heavy burden and, as a result, destroying the underwood and upsetting the vegetative balance.

With regard to this workers of the Park have to enclose the most valuable areas of the forest with thick poles. This is very expensive and time-consuming.

So is it necessary to enclose the entire Pushcha's forest?

Or is it better to leave the things without changing, like the natural way? One can hardly agree to the latter, «patriotic» solution for Pushcha (today, after 20,000 hectares of so-called collective farm forests were added to Pushcha, its area is about 100,000 hectares). One can also hardly agree to make more forest reserved and so, probably, «cluttered up» and full of wind-fallen trees and beetles.

One thing is bark beetle and quite the other is fire. A mere carelessness of people may start a blaze in Pushcha — a thing which happened not once.

Are we so «rich» to pay for that? After all, so much money was spent to cultivate and conserve this forest! Even the most patriotic defenders of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha should think about it.

Still, it would be also wrong to go on accusing each party at issue. On the whole the participants of the press-seminar agreed that what was done in Pushcha was the result of a lack of information. If there had been enough of information, there would not have been such a disagreement over «felling or not felling», especially in the press, which caused a delay in the forest-protection work.

The Belovezhskaya Pushcha had always some mystery about it, as it was the place well-liked by many tsars and many country leaders. It would be enough to recall Viskyli for some people. To the honor of the current administration of the Park, it should be said that this forest pearl of our country is really becoming available for the general public. The press-conference which took place on the eve of the New Year is probably another proof of it. But this is, surely, a personal opinion. The time will show what the situation will be like…