Home – Home – Jornals – Siberian Journal of Forest Science 2021 number 4

The formation and current state of forests in this region is closely related to forest fires that regularly occur throughout its territory. The fire hazard of the main forest types has been investigated for all high-altitude-zone vegetation complexes in different parts of the Baikal region. The high fire hazard of forest areas is due to the absolute domination of fire hazardous types of light coniferous stands in their composition and a specific climate with long spring-summer droughts. The most intense situations are observed in especially dry years of climatic cycles, with forest pyrogenic anomalies, when the fire element spreads over the main landscapes simultaneously in several natural regions. Such cataclysms were observed by the author at the very beginning of the study of the problem, during the aerial monitoring of the Baikal forests in the 1960s, when their fire protection was still in an extensive state due to the priority of intensification of logging. Constructive changes in forest management and forest fire protection required appropriate government decisions and fundamental scientific studies. The general management of the organization and maintenance of prospecting works was carried out by academician A. B. Zhukov. On his personal instructions, a route survey of probable objects for experimental research was undertaken in 1972 by a whole group of leading foresters of the V. N. Sukachev Institute Forest & Timber Siberian Branch USSR Academy of Sciences. The geomorphological profile of Khamar-Daban in the southern Baikal region has become a representative and stationary variant. The altitude range is 700-1300 m. The first group of experimental plots was established in the stands of the Siberian stone pine Pinus sibirica Du Tour, fir Abies Mill. and common pine Pinus L. on the northern mega-slope. On the axial part of the ridge, the objects of stationary research were stands of the Siberian stone pine and fir. In the light-coniferous belt on the southern mega-slope, the dynamics of fire hazard in pine and larch stands was studied. Long-term pyrological studies were carried out at all sites using the method of N. P. Kurbatsky. He carried out the scientific supervision of the work, and also directly participated in their implementation at the experimental sites. The stands on the southern mega-slope of Khamar-Daban were distinguished by the longest duration of the fire hazardous state. On the northern megaslope and in the midlands, a moderate situation usually prevailed. These differences are quite adequate to the distribution of atmospheric precipitation along the profile. Differences in the amount of precipitation on the axial part of the ridge and on the southern megslope in spring and summer reached 2-3 times values, and even more in terms of snow reserves. The maximum duration of the fire hazard was recorded in pine forests on insolated slopes. Larch forests differ from pine forests in a relatively low fire hazard. A grass layer is developed there, which prevents the spread of fire during the active growing season. In spring, the differences in the fire hazard of pine and larch forests are less significant. Dark coniferous forests in the middle mountains are distinguished by the shortest duration of the fire hazardous state. However, it should be noted that there is a local peculiarity in the propagation of combustion with the vertical closeness of the canopy in the Siberian stone-fir stands, with the threat of a transition from a ground fire to a crown fire. The timing of the end of the fire hazardous season is naturally related to the geomorphology of the sites. The latest dates were observed in pine forests on the southern megaslope of Khamar-Daban. The dependence of the process of fire maturation in different types of forest on the dynamics of the complex meteorological indicator is traced. The applied significance of the obtained characteristics is due to the fact that each of the three groups of experimental sites is associated with a certain forestry area in the basin of the lake Baikal: Baikal, mountain-taiga and mountain-forest-steppe. The structure and reserves of the ground layer of combustible materials have been studied. The data obtained indicate that more intense fires are possible in the Baikal region compared to other regions of Southern Siberia. The secular periodicity of abnormal forest fire situations is analyzed in connection with the territorial geoclimatic picture at the beginning of the fire hazardous season. The early appearance of spring forest fires at the same time throughout the entire snowless territory of the region is a sure sign of high tension of the beginning fire hazardous season, as it was in 1965, 1969, 1987, 2003 and 2015. It should be noted that after the modernization of the forest complex in the lake Baikal, which followed the scientific developments of the Institute of Forest and Timber, by the 1980s, the situation with forest fires in the region had stabilized. In this regard, there were no obstacles for a positive decision to assign the lake Baikal to the World Natural Heritage Sites. Unfortunately, the subsequent liberal reforms had a destructive effect on the entire forest complex, especially on the fire protection of forests.

The Government of Krasnoyarsk Krai has adopted a Forest Sector Development Strategy until 2030. Harvesting up to 36 million m³ of wood per year is planned according to the strategy. Viability of the strategy should be provided with the necessary resources and that is its weak point. At present, there is no verifiable information of economically available wood resources. The method for calculating the annual allowable cut acting for more than 100 years has disproved due to unrealistic forest management standards. The normal forest model laid down in the method has not been implemented anywhere. It is impossible to solve the problem of organizing effective forestry and sustainable forest management without re-emergence of forest inventory eliminated actually by the Forest Code, 2006. Significant degradation of the forest inventory system consisted in the transfer of its functions from the federal level to the regional one as well as in declining forest inventory works. The forest fund is federally owned so it is the state instead of the region authority should provide up-to-date reliable information of forests to make successful management decisions and developing strategic planning documents. A principle of effective forestry as production industry will be an objective market ecological and economic assessment of forest resources that could be provided by the re-emerged forest inventory. Implementation of purposed capital investment projects in the Lower Angara region will be difficult due to uncertainty of providing with wood resources required. Owing to forest fund inaccessibility, low forest stand productivity, and environmental constraints, it is unlikely to count on the wood resources reserve of the southern Evenkia. Organization of forest use should be more flexible and promote both development of the forest sector and maintenance of the biosphere role of forests.

The features of post-fire and post-felling formation of pure in composition and mixed pine stands in Krasnoyarsk Priangarye are considered. The structure, growth and biological productivity of forest regeneration successions are analyzed. The highest value of the phytomess of pine stands was 312 ton/ha in terms of absolutely dry matter. Structurally, the ratio of the phytomass fractions of forest stands naturally changes with an increase in their average age and density. At the early stages of development, the relative proportion of the mass of needles and crown wood is much higher than in older tree stands, and varies from 8-10 % at the age of 30-35 to 3-4 % at the age 100-120 years. The maximum biological growth potential in terms of the current increase in phytomass (in terms of total productivity) is realized by the pine stands at the level of 10.2 ton/ha/year of absolutely dry matter at the age of 56 years. At the same time, net primary production is 494 ton С/ha/year. The total phytomass of the pine forest at the age of 120 years reaches 1085 ton/ha. Natural restoration of forest cover in clearings by bedrock and the formation of pine stands is an ecologically positive process, since post-felling and post-fire young stands and middle-aged pine stands have high growth energy and phytomass production rates, more than two times higher than mature stands in the amount of fixed carbon atmosphere and have positive values of carbon balance and total destruction of organic matter according to the parameters «input-output».

The reproduction of cedar-deciduous forests of the Far East, due to their intensive transformation by logging and fires, is becoming a necessary condition for the preservation of not only valuable tree species, food and medicinal plants, but also a unique animal world-with the Amur tiger Panthera tigris tigris Kitchener and the Far Eastern leopard Panthera pardus orientalis (Schlegel). Along with the preservation of undergrowth and fine-grained wood species, it is necessary to make extensive use of the natural processes of spreading Korean pine Pinus koraiensis Siebold & Zucc. seeds in the areas covered by industrial logging. The most important of them will be the creation of certain environmental conditions, the structure and composition of plantings attractive to animals and birds, contributing to the distribution of nuts over the area of destroyed stands. The formation of a certain composition of trees that favorably affect the renewal of cedar, as well as the preservation of the optimal post-harvest completeness of the stand, allows us to successfully ensure the natural renewal of cedar forests in large areas of coniferous-broad-leaved forests. It is especially important to create attractive environmental conditions for spotted nutcracker Nucifraga caryocatactes (Linnaeus) and nuthatches Sitta Linnaeus, which are 90 % of the main carriers of pine nuts over long distances-up to 5 km from the source. When carrying out industrial logging and logging of forest care, it is possible to plan and create the necessary environmental conditions for birds quite successfully.

The forests of the European North-East of Russia have a great potential for recreational activities. The growth of cities, the development of infrastructure, and the construction of new highways of federal and regional significance, contribute to the involvement of all new areas of forest for recreational use. The increase in the flow of tourists causes a conflict between recreational forest management and the need to protect nature in these areas. Based on the materials of field studies, an assessment of the anthropogenic impact on the objects of recreational forest use is given, and the regularities of the influence of recreational load on the state of forest stands are determined. The existing standards for recreational forests are analyzed. They require updating, according to the current forest legislation. The obtained data served as the basis for the development of recommendations for forest management in recreational forests, aimed at preserving and improving their quality condition and increasing the resistance of forest biogeocenoses to anthropogenic impact.

Three-quarters of the Russian maple resources are concentrated in Bashkortostan. Norway maple Acer platanoides L. forms here in pure stands or dominates in the composition of broad-leaved forests on the western macroslope of mountains of the Southern Urals. But the species is represented in the Bashkir Cis-Urals as a part of this type of vegetation with relatively low participation, and the stands are geographically isolated. Using ISSR-analysis of DNA, we carried out a comparative analysis of the genetic variation of populations, which are fragmented to varying degrees during the centuries-old economic development of this region. The 5 primers used allowed us to detect polymorphism in 77 of 96 markers (80.2 %) in 6 examined stands. Significant differences in the level of genetic diversity of maple samples were revealed (the proportion of polymorphic loci varies in the range Р₉₅ = 0.323-0.662, the expected heterozygosity H_E = 0.052-0.148, the average number of alleles n_a = 1.197-1.385, the average effective number of alleles n_e = 1.105-1.261), these parameters are significantly higher in forest areas with a relatively large proportion of the maple in the composition of stands. A comparatively large differentiation of populations was found in the frequencies of ISSR markers. The inter-sample component of genetic variation has a relatively high level of 60.1 % ( G_ST = 0.601, the parameter varies from 0.523 to 0.676 for the primers), this is confirmed by the relatively high pairwise Nei’s genetic distances among populations (they vary from 0.129 to 0.347, on average D = 0.272). The clustering of samples and the use the method of principal components demonstrated that neighboring populations have relatively similar gene pools. It is concluded that the entomophilicity of the maple may be a cause of the patterns identified in the study, which limited the gene flow among geographically isolated stands and their groups. The ways of applying the obtained results in the practice of forestry are discussed.