Establishment of the Taiga Model Forest Area and Development of the Training Station
Introduction
The goal of the subproject is organisation of complex multiple use of the local area providing at the same time social, economical and ecological sustainability. The achievement of this goal should be based on planning experience, applied to the intensive industry areas and optimsatoin methods, being used in mathematical programming.
Specific tasks
The primary tasks, which are to be solved to reach the main purpose are as following:
working out the strategic plan of area development;
division the area into sectors (scientific, training- industrial);
creation of complex information base of resources in the area ( on every type respectively);
research, evaluation and regulation of biodiversity;
processing of wood and non-wood products.
Development of the strategic plan is based on the data of the needs of local inhabitants in the area (the subproject "Social sustainability") and charasteristics of its resources characteristics. These data will be obtained during a inventarisation of area.
Area inventarization
Complete area inventarization is held according to 1-1a rank of forest inventorization once in ten years. As a result of the inventarization we can specify the following information:
forest resources;
composition and age of stands;
vertical structure and mosaic of stands;
marcetability of stands;
presence of phity- and enthomo pest;
rare and valuable plants and stands;
forestry instructions on specific forest site.
Alongside with the main inventarization,which will be completed in 1997, have to be carried out monitoring inventarization before and after any of taken industrial measures to evaluate the impacts of forestry on economical sustainability and biodiversity. The evaluation of resources and composition is carried out on the basis of traditional forest taxation methods. The methods of evaluation of biodiversity are included in the subproject "Ecological sustainability".
The chief forester of the experimental forest docent Grigory Romanov and forester Markus Huhtinen is in charge of the inventarization. The works are to be concluded in the third quarter of 1997. The results will be used in developing the forest plan.
Division of sectors (scientific and training-explotation) and their juridicial registration
The forest area is divided into two sectors- scientific and training-expliotation.
Scientific sector is closed for forestry works. This sector is meant for researches, education and excursions. The sector consists of the forest sites (taxation comportments) growing rare plants, dense and over-mature stands and unusual nature objects.
In the nature are established permanent experimental plots. The data are transfered to the Karelian State Forest Committee and Pryazha forestr management unit. The traning exploatation sector is served for educational purposes and organisation of works on commercial usage of the area. Studies ( training and industrial practices) are carried out on permanent experimental plots, established for forest operations (cutting, cleaning, reforestation). Every sample plot -industrial object- shoud meet the requirements of the appropriate rules and instructions and also researchers` needs, carrying out monitoring of impacts on the industrial activities.
Example 1. Carrying out final cutting provisions are made for cleaning the cuttings by means of stacking the cutting remains by portage; the alternative variant is the use of prescribe burning.
Example 2.The following reforestation will be provideded by means of a) artificial regeneration, b) natural regeneration.
Impact of taken measures on natural environment and at the same time study of the natural process will be investigated in all these cases.
Methods of establishing experimental plots drow an analogy to that of carrying out in research sector.
Planning of industrial exploitations of area
General planning of area exploitation
Planning should be carried out considering all the aspects of area exploitation with the help of simultanuos strategic (up down) and tactical (down up) planning.
Strategic planning includes division of the area and development of forestry concept. Beforehand, taking into account preliminary collected information, it is nessesary to choose zones with primary usage directions(industrial, research, educational), which could be corrected afterwards. Then, bearing in mind multiple use of the model forest (including educational and demonstrative ones) we should work out a system of forest exploatation, providing permanent enterprise excistance under conditions of exhausted forests. The given system should provide necessary changes in forest composition and structure and should be based on close interaction and combination of cutting and reforestation, using traditional and advanced methods.
Tactical planning should be based on the recommendations considering the possibilities of every spesific forest site. Evaluation of these possibilities should be made during nature survey. The accepted recommendations for every site use should take into account the properties of surrounding areas and the interests of strategic planning. Planning of longterm industrial sustainability, especially in terms of limited resources is quite impossible without forecasting the growth of forests of mankind activities. For reliable forecasting it is nessesary to use both available and potentially available information, received from the areas similar to natural conditions. Together with better reliability of the conclusions, provided by the long duration of observations (up to 25 years) the use of these data will made recommendations, worked out on the basis of model forest more suitable for Karelian area namely because of vast diversity of collecting original information conditions.
Industrial plan of area exploitation includes:
industrial exploitation,
development of road network,
development of the plan for final and intermediate cuttings;
utilization of timber;
utilization of non wood products;
utilization of non-covered forest areas.
non-industrial utilization
ecological tourism;
organization of hunting and fishing industries.
research-educational use.
Planning of industrial exploitation and control
Working out and realization of the area exploitation will be put into practice using inventarisation results of local area to meet the needs of the inhabitants of Matrosy settlement and the settlements in the vicinities.
Plan for final and intermediate cuttings includes:
programme of cuttings;
plan for cleaning cutting areas;
reforestation programme.
Cutting, cleaning and reforestation programme is formed on the basis of inventarisation and nature survey of the area data. It represents the system of various experiments in accordance with Rule statements. Every experiment is registered as a permanent experimental plot.
The main task of the given item - is to provide in the long run mosaic structure of tree species distribution and even distribution by the age classes (groups) for providing of equal use per cutting turnover. The extent of timber utilization will be defined - first for every forest group considering the aspect of tree species, and - second for different variants of final and intermediate cuttings.
Road network. The forest area has enough ramified net of old forest roads. At the first stage there is a task to prepare existing forest roads by which transport of wood is possible. The projecting work will be made by the Faculty of Forest Engineering under the leadership of teachers of forest transport and geodesy.
Research of wood utilization covers the following directions:
studying of demand of wood product assortments in Matrosy settlement and its vicinities;
possibility of wood processing on the spot.
The answer to the first item will be found at the end of the third quater after inquiring the local population. The possibility to organize wood processing on the spot depends on taxation characteristics of stands, which will be subjected to cutting and is connected with the nessesity to purchase the appropriate machinery.
Klementyev E.I., representative of the Institute of History, is in charge of demand investigation. The Docent Vasiljev S.B. of the chair TEFC is responsible for organization of wood processing works.
After the finishing the inventarization and receiving information about the demand character, the solution about the possibility of processing enterprises organisation in Matrosy settlement will be accepted.
The use of non-wood products and non-forest lands is connected with creating of new working places for the inhabitants of Matrosy settlement if there is a need in products, which could be received on these lands. The use of the lands used for electrical network is of great interest. More than 100 hectares is occupied by non-forest lands. At the moment there is a number of suggestions for their use:
for road network construction;
for Christmas tree plantations;
for bath besoms;
for bush berry plantation.
It will require detailed study of soil and ground conditions of the lands and studying of juridicial basis concerning the right to use these lands in industrial turnover.
The use of non-wood products ( berries, mushrooms) according to the existing laws is free of charge but we think it would be useful to take the complex of measures in order to get minimal profit out of the above mehtioned use.
Non-industrial use of the area
Speaking about the problem of multiple-use of nature besides industrial exploitation of the area it is nessesary to mention non-industrial one, that is to say not accompanied by the industrial storing up of production.
The aim of this direction is the achievement of more intensive utilization of resources use disposed on some limited area (in this case on the area of experimental forest), which can be served as an object for the development of the respective direction. The developed plan should serve later as a model for solution the problem of multiple use of nature resources.
Non-industrial use suggests develpoment in two directions:
organization of ecological tourism;
development of the plan of keeping fishing and hunting industry.
The organization of ecological tourism on the small area can be considered as the model with the subsequent transference of the obtained results to larger objects.
It is necessary to solve the following problems:
to estimate possible natural diversity of the area, that is to determine natural objects of the utmost interest;
to estimate the historical value of the area;
to determine how the interesting objects are scattered about the area and to unite them into one system through the ecological paths creation;
to reconstruct some of the historical sights, if necessary;
in order to take off the negative pressure it is necessary to arrange the area and to create some place for recreation with various grades of comfort;
while developing the present line it is necessary to minimize of the negative pressure on the environment and to maximize possible profit at the same time.
The development of plan for hunting and fishing presumes the following amount of work:
to study the methods of wildlife management (Prayzha hunting) and to find out information of fish-farming methods, taking domestic and foreign practice into consideration;
to determine the animal and fish species of which the wildlife management will be aimed;
to define the ways of hunting and fishing in the area in accordance with the legislation;
to define clearly with the problem of animal and fish breeding;
to develop paid services system in the sphere of hunting and fishing beginning from tackles and tools ( production, sale, renting) to licenses sale;
to arrange special, fishing and hunting fields which is necessary to carry out together with ecological tourism line.
Educational and exploitation use
The work on the model area arrangement should include the foundation of a complex of objects for educational, demonstrational and scientific purposes. Design of such objects should be done in close cooperation with the elaboration of the area development strategy as a whole. To persue the training and educational aims it is preferable to make enough sites ( not less than 3 ha ) with thoroughly studied characteristics of all the elements of the forest biogeocenosis and, if necessary, where some field work has been already done. Plotless survey should be done for the objects selected and the detailed outline handbook and set of markings should be drawn up.
Scientific use stipulates mainly the establishment of Permanent Sample Plots (PSP) with complex description of forest biogeocenos including its space structure. Experimental plots are established on the sites with different types and degree of industrial impact. It is necessary to establish PSP in plantations, being analogues of the longterm stationary objects in the region.
Urgent works in the establishment of new experimental plots should be planned concidering the urgency of the types of industrial activities for the experimental area and taking into account the real possibilities of carrying out cutting and reforestation operations.
