CENTURY BELARUSIAN TIMBER CORPORATION

The article by Sergey Klimenko, Brest city
Specially for the «Belovezhskaya Pushcha — XXI Century» website
June 15, 2004

This publication is dedicated to Belovezhskaya Pushcha, history and mathematics. A strange combination, isn't it? However most of the recent discoveries have been taking place at the interface between different sciences. The Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in this regard, is not an exception. So we will also make an attempt at such an interdisciplinary analysis.

The ground for this article was an accidental meeting and conversation with a man at a railway station. He was born not far from Belovezhskaya Pushcha and works nearby there sawing timber. Let's name him Anton. It is an accidental fellow-traveller, the meeting and conversation with a man who have left some fruits for thoughts.

The railway station Zhabinka, it is here that for the last several years timber lorries have been daily coming from Belovezhskaya Pushcha. They all carry either reserved spruce — round timber, 6-metre long logs — or sometimes oak. At the station their load is put onto railway carriages and then is exported to Russia, or Germany, Belgium and other EU countries. The volume of export amounts to hundreds of cubic metres of timber a week or tens of thousands of cubic metres a year. This is what happens to the timber in the south of Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In the north of it, it is delivered to the railway station of Svisloch-Volkovysk to be shipped to mainly the same countries.

Planks and balk produced at saw-mills in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha are then loaded into heavy haulers and are also sent to the West. Besides, a considerable amount of timber is delivered to numerous private saw-mills which are densely built around Pushcha. It is noteworthy that this particular timber is whole and of the highest quality. It is not in the least like that third-rate and half-rotten timber which is dumped on the premises of the timber mill belonging to the Pushcha's administration. Businessmen from major regional towns and cities nearby try also not to lag behind in exploiting Belovezhskaya Pushcha timber recourses. There are many already-operating mills of the National Park. A timber mill in Kamenyuki, for example, can alone process up to 250 cubic metres of timber a day, the mill in Shereshevo — up to 80 cubic metres a day. What a scale! Those who were visiting Pushcha as tourists could see the roaring timber lorries which one by one carry the timber away. This is the best, elite timber! This timber is the treasure of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. It cannot be found anywhere else in Belarus.

The figures available from newspapers suggest that for the last several years about 250,000 cubic metres of timber have been cut annually in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In reality though, the figures may be higher than that. According to the «green» activists, there is presently standing, «not yet cut down» 1 million cubic metres of timber in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. The administration of the park is ready to chop it down. This has been recently stressed at the meeting with the experts from UNESCO and the representatives of ecological and public organizations. For three years now Pushcha has been suffering from an infestation of a voracious bark beetle, which has left so many areas of spruce wood dead that saw mills in Belarus and abroad can hardly have power to process it. This is because the National Park, in this case, is simply short of machinery and equipment, as well as work force and money to be able to cut down wood that the nature «offers».

Let's leave alone the questions of ecology and conservation due to their specific character. These questions provide a separate difficult subject for discussion. Let's just look at the economy which may give more comprehensive examples to many people.

Can you say how much the profit will increase provided that the volume of timber cut in Belovezhskaya Pushcha has increased from the earlier figure of 60,000 — 70,000 cubic metres to today's which is about 300,000 cubic metres. Right, the answer is the profit will be at least 3 — 4 times bigger. The profit of the enterprise and businesses involved in logging and sawing the timber and, hopefully, salaries of workers are thought to be increased accordingly. But people who have friends or relatives working in the National Park know that the real salary of local workers (in the dollar equivalent) has not even been doubled to the salary which was paid 3 — 4 years ago (the salary of temporary workers hired by the administration is not counted here, this is also the separate story with its own secrets and tricks). But the salary paid at saw-mills in outlying areas, for instance, in Shereshevo remained unchanged. This is what was said by Anton who works in the National Park. He is not an economist and so he doesn't understand why the situation is so bad. Let's try to clarify it a bit.

Anton says that nearby the saw mill located in Shereshevo a relative of the director (his son) uses a collective farm power-saw bench to saw the timber from the Belovezhskaya Pushcha which is then partly, with forged documents, carried away from the National Park bypassing the law. Orders to workers at check-posts in the Pushcha are given to let the lorries carrying such timber through without check. According to Anton, the spare parts and fuel intended for the saw-mill and the forestry administrative area in Shereshevo are also partly used for private purpose, even though the shortage of them for purposes of the mill is obvious and effects the operation of equipment. It is common practice for Shereshevo to process the living trees, including, as Anton says, forest growing in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. This type of timber isn't processed at a saw-mill in the village of Kamenyuki, in the places where everything is in full view.

Such «tricks» are well known for many people who live or work in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha. They keep quiet only until the first serious check of the National Park is carried out by commission which is independent from the Property Management Department of the President. Of course relatively independent, it should be added. So all this said by Anton is most likely true although we do not want to insist on this statement. In outlaying areas the order and law, due to loose control, are not so strictly kept to by people. Moreover, the recent events connected with the arrest of Galina Zhuravkova, head of the Property Management Department of the President, and successive charges against her, support this idea. After all she conducted the manpower policy and chose people for her team in accordance with her understanding and plans, amongst which there also turned out to be the criminal ones. In an interview to the newspaper «Respublika» of February 1st, 2002 she said: «…the nature, probably, gifted me with business intuition. I easily »feel« people and can nearly unmistakably see their strengths and weaknesses». It is clear what kind of «strengths» and «weaknesses» may mean for such people….

But these examples still cannot explain all tricks in the economy of the National Park. More important here will probably be information given on terms of confidentiality by one relevant official who is more deeply aware of how the business is run in the Park. «Whatever aspect you take in the economy of the National Park, it is almost all about wrecking and adventurism. No other ministerial structure can boast of such complete chaos, mess and window dressing. The main reason is that here everything is hidden from external control and the eyes of a stranger. This is an excellent ground for abuses. Projects advertised in the whole country can afterwards routinely turn out to be flops not bringing profits. All their negative consequences and losses are carefully covered up. This is often done by »promoting« and »advertising« new projects which grab attention from the results of the already realized ones. No wonder about that, because for nearly 3 years now the functioning of the economic planning department in the National Park has been nominally only. Qualified specialists were fired and replaced then by casual people from the street who did not have even an economic education», — such is his verdict.

Here is just one typical example proving that. As it was published in the papers last year, the state allotted an enormous sum of budgetary money (hundreds of thousands of dollars) to cut down trees affected by bark beetle and hurricane. Trees were being cut, but then many of them were left in forest to rot. As a result, the wood which had been cut gratis brought losses from the processing of punk rather than bringing big profits for the Park. If we add to this example the attitude of the administration of the National Park to its workers, very remotely resembling the way a good business ethic should be, we will get the answer to the question which was put earlier: all of the stated above is, apparently, the main reason for low salaries which do not correspond to theoretically possible profit of payments in the National Park. And this situation is taking place when bark beetle and hurricanes of the last years «served» timber merchants such a big piece of Belovezhskaya Pushcha — millions of cubic metres of excellent timber. What is to happen then to the economy of the Park when bark beetle infection is ended and the rate of dying trees is back to normal, which is when it is 4 — 5 times lower? If the present huge volume of timber cutting does not make the National Park look profitable what will be in future? Do the government authorities think of that and are they going to finally concern themselves with the economy of Belovezhskaya Pushcha? Or do they all live one day at a time trusting to luck and keeping to the principle of not making long-term goals.

Now here are a few facts of how Belovezhskaya Pushcha was under threat of destruction in the past. The information is taken from books on Belovezhskaya Pushcha.

In 1839 3,000 of the most large and straight oaks and pines of 350 — 400 years old were cut down in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha and shipped for the Sea Department. From 1845 to 1848 13,000 of the best pines were chopped down for the firm «Thompson & Bonar». A.I.  Gercen and N.P.  Ogarev later expressed their indignation about that in the newspaper «Kolokol». On the whole from 1849 to 1854 about 45,000 large trees were chopped down, and from 1845 to 1857 more than 174,000 trees were shipped abroad. In World War 1 from 1915 to 1918 the Germans laid about 300 km of narrow-gauge railways and built 4 saw-mills. Over two and a half years 4.5 million cubic metres of timber were shipped to Germany. In 1927 — 1928 the English company «The Century European Timber Corporation» or simply «Centura» harvested 1 million 947 thousand cubic metres of timber. In 1934 — 35 the Polish government sold out 1 million 208 thousand cubic metres of timber. By that time 20% of the Pushcha area had been already felled down.

Outrageous, isn't? One may think how greedy and bad they were at one time, these Germans, British, Poles and Russians. It was as if the only thing they thought about was to cut the whole Belovezhskaya Pushcha. And we, the Belarusians act as if we day and night assiduously protect our national property. Spare neither power, nor money to multiply it. At least, this is what the official propaganda says. But let's finally focus on mathematics. The following figures are also taken from publicly printed sources.

So the Germans had 4 timber processing plants. The Belarusians now have 1 large and 1 average and dozens of smaller saw-mills in the vicinities of the Pushcha. Moreover today's saw-mills have the latest equipment, including computer-operated equipment, which can saw day and night. So it turns out that at present amount of power-saw benches is not less than in the past. The British used to cut 1 million cubic metres of timber a year, the Germans — 1.8 million. It sometimes could take half a day to cut a large tree with handsaws and axes. Nowadays the Belarusians more and more use the Swedish gasolene saws, capable of cutting an enormous tree in a few minutes. It turns out that technically we are more advanced…

In the past the Belovezhskaya Pushcha was not divided (today one half of it belongs to Belarus and the other to Poland) and the area of Pushcha was larger — about 130 million hectares. Thereby, the British chopped down 6.5 cubic metres of timber per 1 hectare, whereas today the ratio is 300,000 cubic metres per 65,000 hectares, that is if consider the old border in the area of the Regulated Nature Zone (controlled nature management) (in the Wilderness Protection Zone cutting is forbidden, in the Economic Activity Zone there is no timber, in the Regulated Recreational Use Area there are young trees and is almost nothing to cut, new territories which were made part of Pushcha do not have a lot of valuable timber for cutting too). So it makes 4.6 cubic metres per hectare. The administration is ready to cut 1 million cubic metres of timber or 15.4 cubic metres per 1 hectare! That is more cutting than under the first German occupation (12 cubic metres per hectare)! It is clear that the present volume of cutting stands not far from that of the English company «Centura». Unfortunately, there are some people who think of beating the records of the past and setting their own records! It isn't hard to believe that this may come true if one recalls at what scale the present administration of the National Park began to develop the throw of timber harvesting in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha a few years ago. That also meant cutting the living forest and felling the wood illegally. But if there were no public efforts and the work of ecologists and scientists, new records might have already been set.

So, if the attempts to intensify cuttings are realized, could you say who the most dangerous predator in the history of Belovezhskaya Pushcha is? Foreigners and invaders, who used to come in Pushcha to snatch the timber and go home or the Belarusians themselves, who under the law and in good conscience ought to keep Pushcha protected as it is their native land? So why then the Belarusians have such big hunger for timber in Pushcha, a hunger which is not less for that of the British or Germans at the barbaric times passed long ago? But perhaps the people cutting timber in Belovezhskaya Pushcha are not the Belarusians at all? Perhaps these are some other temporary merchants who live for their own sake and work for a new historical company «The Century Belarusian Timber Corporation»? Perhaps this company is also mostly concerned with making hips of quick, easy money and then leaving the treasure of the Belarusian land tattered and robbed.