Belovezhskaya Pushcha - XXI Century | Book1 | The Belovezhskaya Pushcha forests

THE BELOVEZHSKAYA PUSHCHA FORESTS: PROBLEMS OF ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

Alexandr V. Pugachevskii,
Institute of Experimental Botany,
National Academy of Science,
Minsk,
Belarus

Igor G. Romanyuk, Evgenij A. Smoktunovich
National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha",
Kamenyuki,
Belarus

Figure 38. Oak forest with
natural regrowth (PB)

The Belovezhskaya Pushcha is unique primarily due to its forests. The feature of the Pushcha that primarily puts it into an exceptional position when compared to all other European forests is the age structure of its forest stands. The forest cover is dominated by stands that are mature and even older (Table 1). On one hand, this gives the Pushcha forest its special uniqueness and value, on the other hand, it creates many ecological, economic, and forestry problems for the park's forest management..The Belovezhskaya Pushcha has a long-established practice to avoid clearance cuttings and felling the live trees with the exception of sanatary cuttings (for instance, after drought in old spruce stands followed by Bark Beetle infestation).

ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS FOR THE FOREST MANAGEMENT

The following problems may be defined as ecological ones:

a decrease in the tolerance of old-growth forest stands to unfavourable environmental factors (droughts, hurricanes, changes in the subsoil water level, forest infestations and diseases, recreational impact, contamination, etc.), as a result of biological ageing;
a considerable number of stands containing old trees of similar age are decaying rapidly when their natural tolerance threshold is overcome;
difficulties with natural regeneration of native forest-forming species (Table 2), such as pine and oak, due to their weak regrowth in the presence of an excessive ungulate density that has artificially been maintained over an extended period; this process leads to the succession to a spruce monoculture with reduced presence of pine, oak, lime and ash typical of the climax lowland forest;

Table 1
Distribution of trees in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Forests by Formations and Stand Age Groups

Stands Formation		Young Stands	Middle-Aged	Ripening	Mature	Old	Total	Average age (years)
National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" Forests ¹
Pine	ha	5317	19375	2612	11341	6429	45074	101
Pine	%	11.8	43.0	5.8	25.2	14.3	57.97	101
Spruce	ha	252	3097	1786	2911	301	8347	112
Spruce	%	3	37.1	21.4	34.9	3.6	10.74	112
Oak	ha	38	657	241	2133	573	3642	150
Oak	%	1.0	18.0	6.6	58.6	15.7	4.68	150
Hornbeam	ha	6	206	58	141	349	760	96
Hornbeam	%	0.8	27.1	7.6	18.6	45.9	0.98	96
Ash	ha	1	259	307	325		892	133
Ash	%	0.1	29	34.5	36.4		1.15	133
Maple	ha		10	8	48		66	149
Maple	%		15.1	12.2	72.7		0.08	149
Birch	ha	123	4174	1029	985	132	6443	59
Birch	%	1.9	64.8	16	15.3	2	8.29	59
Aspen	ha	3	25	79	384	144	635	64
Aspen	%	0.5	3.9	12.4	60.5	22.7	0.82	64
European Alder	ha	112	3280	2198	4073	2214	11877	76
European Alder	%	0.9	27.6	18.5	34.4	18.6	15.28	76
Lime	ha		11	3			14	61
Lime	%		78.6	21.4			0.02	61
Grand Total, National Park	ha	5852	31094	8321	22341	10142	77750
Grand Total, National Park	%	7.5	40.0	10.7	28.7	13.0	100
All forests under the Ministry of Forestry, Belarus ²
	%	37.0	42.7	15.7	4.6		100.0
¹ Data on the State National Park «Belovezhskaya Pushcha» are based on forest inventories.. ² Based on data of the RB Ministry of Forestry

Table 2
Availability of undergrowth in old-growth forests

Forest Formation	Area of Ripening, Mature, and Old Stands	Area with undergrowth		Areas with thick undergrowth ^A		Undergrowth Composition ^B
		he	%	he	%	x10%
Pine	20382	18595	91.2	10034	50.0	8S 1H 1B
Spruce	4998	4478	89.6	3076	61.5	8S 2H
Oak	2947	2387	81.0	1652	56.0	5S 4H 1As
Hornbeam	548	438	79.9	299	54.6	5H 4S 1M
Ash	632	594	94.0	491	77.7	6As 3S 1H
Maple	56	32	57.1	25	44.6	9H 1As
Birch	2146	1786	83.3	776	36.2	7S 2H 1As
Aspen	607	393	64.7	227	37.4	8S 2H
European Alder	8485	7781	91.7	4083	48.1	7S 2As 1A
Total	40781	36484	89.4	20663	50.7	6S 3H 1As
^A "thick undergrowth" means areas with undergrowth of native wood species, with at least 3,000 pieces per hectare with an average height of at least 0.5m. ^B S, H, B, As, M, A indicate the forest types dominated by Spruce, Hornbeam, Birch, etc.

poor pine regeneration due to the effective fire protection in the Pushcha forests which has led to the formation of a thick moss cover and ground litter which hinders germination and seedling rooting;
a fall in the biodiversity, and a deterioration in the conditions for natural regeneration of spruce and oak, as a result of complete stand removal in dry habitats;
a retarded renewal of the soil profile in forest ecosystems due to a reduced volume of natural pedoperturbations as a consequence of complete stand removal in dry habitats in the course of sanitary cuttings.

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH ECOLOGY AND FOREST MANAGEMENT

Economic problems with forest management practices are closely related to ecological and forestry problems. These are:

low profitability of felling because of the low-quality timber from old-growth stands of dry habitats;
inability of efficiently logging of dead trees in dry stands due to the lack of specialised equipment and difficulties with the mechanisation of the process;
inability to accurately plan logging due to irregular tree dying processes and the lack of forecast data on these processes in the Pushcha forests;
the impossibility of using the National Park sawn-wood production facilities at full capacity through regulated use of dead and dying trees and, consequentially, the necessity to procure additional funds.

ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS ARE INTERWOVEN

Problems in the forestry production branch are closely interwoven with ecological and economic issues; the more so as all these problems have to be mainly solved through the application of available forestry methods and by the restricted number of forest workers. Among the problems one can list:

the necessity to fulfil routine (and above the planned) yearly cuttings by limited forestry manpower, under conditions of relatively low need in sanitary cuttings;
the complexity of afforestation after sanitary cuttings due to both rapid grassing over and ungulate activity which destroys preliminary undergrowth and self-sown species and cultivars;
the necessity to match the interests of the forest proper with those of game hunting and tourism, without the necessary regulatory and/or recommendatory documents.

Figure 39. Bison at a storage depot
for cut trees in a forest clearing (WJ)

The entire complexity of challenges associated with the old-growth forests of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha are an integrated problem for their management. This problem is the basic one for the Park's staff in the 21st century.

CHALLENGES FOR THE FORESTS' MANAGEMENT

Figure 40. Young oak
seedling (NC)

The first steps towards solving the problems of the Belovezhskaya Pushcha forests' management should be:

the use of large-scale investigations into the current dynamics and structure of these forests in relation to the forest management regimes and the dynamics of climate (in particular, the study of demographic processes in populations of the forest-forming tree species, the ecological consequences of multiyear removal of dead wood from the forest, the study of post-catastrophic dynamics of spruce forests; moreover, an analysis of the after-effects of a reduction in the ungulate density);
experimental work aimed at actively stimulating natural regeneration of, primarily, oak woods and pine stands in the Pushcha;
a critical analysis of the adopted practice of logging, including the selection of trees for cutting, the methods of felling, and the clearing the cut areas;

Figure 41. Herd of Bison at the
winter feeding place (AB)
the analysis of the current functional zoning of the Park's territory, including the newly added areas and the necessity of more profound differentiation in the adapted forestry practices. However, the current Wilderness Zone should keep its present status.