WHOSE CONES ARE IN THE FOREST?
The article by Marina Zagorskaya,
Published in «Byelorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta» (The Byelorussian business newspaper) Newspaper, #13,
February 03, 2003
The press-tour to the Belovezhskaya Pushcha was set on the 29th of January. Participants were quite representative: Belarusian and Polish scientists, leaders of nongovernmental organizations, and some tens of journalists, in all there were more than half a hundred people. The administration of the National Park decided to become hospitable, in order to deny once and for all information about industrial fellings on the protected territory. The visit to several forest quarters along a route, proposed by the administration, and conversations with experts have left a depressing impression on the «BDG» correspondent. There is a real danger for the Pushcha.
As an owner
Local inhabitants, with whom it was possible to talk directly at the sawmill site and by phone the day before the trip, said that Pushcha was full of noise in the weekend — «the setting» was being prepared along the route. Timber lorries, one after another, took timber out to the plant, while the workers moved the wood they were not able to take out in time, deep into the forest. At the same time, they burnt the branches and rests from cut trees and even covered stumps (which were well visible from the road). The day before the trip an order was issued in the National Park, forbidding the employees to move within the Pushcha with their personal vehicles, supposedly to prevent somebody to appear casually alongside the journalists and tell them the truth.
Nevertheless, a rather unattractive picture arose before our eyes. It isn't possible to see such a view in each timber enterprise: stacked logs, fallen trees, stumps,
The general director of the National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha», Nickolai Bambiza, denied accusations to his address: «I consider, and it is true, that illegal industrial fellings on the territory of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha are absent».
As he himself admits, all the materials recently published in the newspapers get him irritated. It is no wonder: the ecologists« view on the Pushcha's problems prevails in many articles; while Nickolai Bambiza is an economic planner to the bone. His aspirations are to put Belovezhskaya Pushcha in economic order — it is wrong if the profit of a forest that is able to make money, equals naught.
«The Park, like any economic structure in the country, has the right to be engaged in economic activities», Nickolai Bambiza considers. «When the sawmill had been bought, it was nobody's intention to cut the Pushcha».
Another issue is that the German sawmill had a high price. Besides this it was proved that the sawmill has more problems when processing dry wood, than when processing freshly cut trees. But debts need to be paid. According to Nickolai Bambiza, the Park has settled all accounts in respect to the sawmill last year.
— We paid the debt with money, instead of making a barter with timber, underlines Mr. Bambiza. The volume of processed timber was 50 thousand cubic meters per year.
— And what is the total sum of the National Park's profit for last year?
— About 3.7 billion rubles.
— And how much did timber processing contribute to this figure?
— With 1 billion.
— And other economic activities?
— Trade, tourism and hunting have brought income too. 300 thousand Euros were brought by tourism, 200 thousand Euros by hunting.
— How much did the output increase after processing wood from trees affected by bark beetle had started?
— It increased by 20 per cents, but this is not enough to make money. Budget finances are too limited for the Park's activity.
— What is more important for the production volume of the timber processing facility?
— Qualification of the staff. Useful life of the sawmill is 3 — 4 years. There is not enough time to get the necessary qualification for the staff. For the moment people do not have time to get qualified.
— Is this due to the changes in the labour force? You do not give jobs to local people, while you employ «Talibans» (this is how the locals call workers invited from other regions of the country) …
— They are citizens of our country. They work excellently. Believe me, better than the locals.
— But where do inhabitants of Kamenyuki village work?
— In different places, where some steal, some make trade. I have fired a lot of them last year — 160 people. For drinking problems.
A «Taliban», working at the timber facility, did not tell his surname — «You want me to get fired then?», but he said that he came from Gomel region, he makes 250 thousand rubles per month here, he is satisfied and is ready to work two shifts per day and without weekends.
«Locals cannot find a job anywhere now», says a worker from the village. He also did not want to give his name. «Perhaps only at a collective farm. Visitors are respected more. They even get the biggest salaries ".
In the «living» forest, as the general director of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha asserts, wood is harvested only at the Shereshevskoye timber exploitation site, which is not a protected zone.
The managers consider the aging of the Pushcha and, in connection to it, the increasing amount of dead standing and laying trees after windstorms, as one of the basic problems.
«The picture is not attractive», the deputy director on science Anna Dengubenko indicates blockages that appeared last year on the 27th February. The storm started to blow at five o'clock in the evening; it lasted not longer than five minutes and had ruined almost 181 hectares of forest. The wind uprooted and broke trees just like they were matches. Fortunately, a herd of bisons, which was grazing in this area, exactly half an hour before the hurricane, obeying a natural instinct, had left off and settled harmoniously in an open field. However, no animals have been found under the blockages either.
«We could not measure areas, affected by the second windstorm from July: pockets of windfalls have been created all over the forest», says Anna Dengubenko. «After that hurricane many trees have fallen even though they haven't been under very strong wind. We hurry to clean all this as soon as possible and to plant pines and oaks grown in a forest nursery and produced from our genetic fund of Pushcha seeds. This is needed in order to quickly restore the forest».
Enemies are around
The Deputy Manager of the Presidential Property Management Department of Belarus, Galina Volchuga, considers that the reason for the pitiable situation of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha is the wide-scale spreading of the bark beetle. The experts discussed for 6 years, whether it is necessary to fell the trees affected by beetles. In her opinion, that's just what produced the «tragic consequences».
The theme of the main enemy of the Pushcha, the spruce bark beetle, was so often brought up by the managers that I wanted to have the bug «in sight». It winters in the forest litter, taking to «hunting» only in spring. But entomologists say that it is possible to find the beetle under tree bark in winter too. Alas, during our expedition we have not been successful in revealing traces of the bark beetle on any plot, even though we had the assistance of a skilled expert. They were absent even in the strictly protected zone, the zone where any influence of human beings on nature is forbidden. By the way, former employee of the Park Vyacheslav Semakov informed us that the participants to our expedition are the first tourists that have obtained permission to visit the strictly protected zone, in the last 10 years. This area has become a World Heritage Site in 1993. On the Belarusian territory the part of the reserve which has the World Heritage status occupies about 5 thousand hectares. In general, 17.9 per cent of Pushcha's territory is the Wilderness Protection Zone.
As employees of the National Park calculated, 15 — 32 million beetles per hectare have settled for wintering. Chemical substances are not suitable for the struggle with the beetle. It is a forbidden method in national parks. Secondly, trees would be killed together with beetles too. Anna Dengubenko informed us that natural enemies cannot help to win the battle with the beetle either: «Only radical methods are always good. We select infected trees and take them away from the Pushcha in order to deprive the bugs from food. It is necessary to do this before the end of May».
The mass breeding of the bark beetle in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha took place in June 2001. An artful enemy of dark brown colour and only 5 mm long has attacked mighty spruce trees 45 meters high. However, biologists assert that the bug has the role of a doctor in forests with natural conditions. It occupies only weakened trees(by age, by draught, by weather conditions), quickening their death. Healthy spruces successfully bury bark beetles by flooding them with pitch in the apertures bored by the bugs themselves. Sick trees are not able to do this. Bark beetle larvae eat the bark of the trees they were born onto. The life of many others species is connected to this bug. And the death of an old spruce tree is a natural process. In nature it comes just much slower than it would be desirable for man. A dry dead spruce can stand up for hundreds of years. It becomes a dwelling for woodpeckers and owls. The fallen tree is home to different species of insects and plants for some tens of years. And when rests of the spruce decompose, new forest grows on its place.
Ecologists consider that clear sanitary fellings on protected territories have only one positive effect, namely the economic one. They allow for all the timber to be used. But it induces the bark beetle to search for forage sources in other sites. It is better if the infection centre fades away naturally. But such result is possible only in the strictly protected areas. Nickolai Bambiza says that on the Polish territory the struggle with the bark beetle is conducted using «the same methods, but in an even more authoritarian way», carrying out daily surveys and removing both the dead and the new populated spruce trees. It is true that there is a smaller percentage of spruce in the forests on the Polish side, while on our side they occupy 14 per cents of the Pushcha's territory. The former director of the Bialowieza National Park (Poland), a native to Pushcha, Czeslaw Okolow believes that Belarusians have lost time in this matter. According to the information of Nickolai Bambiza, now 500 — 700 million rubles are needed for the struggle with the bark beetle.
From the point of view of the ecologists there is only one way to solve this problem — extending the wilderness protection zone. However, there are plans only for extending the economic zone. This decision was taken by the President. He paid attention to the mosaic of the Pushcha after having flown in the helicopter over the woods. Now a project to join more than 3,000 hectares of forests and agricultural lands to the National Park is being coordinated with the local authorities. «This will allow employment to rise and profits from timber processing, hunting, and tourism too», Nickolai Bambiza informed during the final press conference.
Last year about 55 thousand tourists and 100 hunters have visited the Pushcha. 1180 people are employees of the National Park, while the staff of the scientific department consists of only 19 persons. It turns out that the economic activity outruns the researches.
P.S. «Byelorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta» is further going to monitor the situation in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, because during the press-tour our correspondent has not received answers to all questions.