Help to save unique relict forests in Altay! Forests are no strangers!

Wildlife sanctuaries are destroying by industrial cutting in the Altai region.
There are 4 out of 5 of the world the relict belt forest in Altay region. The uniqueness of this natural phenomenon lies in the features of the location and method of forming forests. Belt forests called so because stretch from north-east to south-west parallel to each other in the form of strips of width from 10 to 60 km. along the rivers. Length of the longest belt is 550 km.

In 1963 the first forest reserve was established – now there are more than 30 nature reserves of regional significance, which cover most part of the territory. The reserve is prohibited business activities, leading to a change in the composition and natural state of the plant and animal world, but settled for sanitary cutting gentle forest management. The volume of cuttings and place determined in accordance with forest inventory data, which are drawn up and approved by organizations that have passed the state ecological expertise. For businesses holding "Altai Forest", which is the main tenant of the forest in the province was approved forest management plan for the West-Siberian forest management company. Under the plan, logging increased 5-fold compared with the plans of the Soviet era, although the status of the forest remained the same – with 10-20 cubic meters. meters per hectare. up to 100. For example, in the forestry Mamontovskoye harvested 14.7 thousand cubic meters per year, the plan for 2013 is more than 50 thousand cubic meters. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that under the guise of sanitary cutting they cut not diseased and overgrown trees, as it should be, but healthy ones, which are suitable for the production of timber for export. Unmade timely forest residues and waste products are rotting in the forest, exacerbating the crisis. When skidding wheels of tractors and trucks destroyed soil, formed thousands of years, destroyed the roots of perennial herbs, mushroom spawn, shrub, pine shoots – all the forest ecological system. In places where were cutting, now we have a lot of trees felled by the wind, because without protection of elder pine (more than 100 years old) young ones can’t resist the wind forming in the steppe zones. The remaining new growth and diseased trees with this function fail, resulting in the woods become even rarer. In addition, not cleared forest residues have caused increasing population of bark beetles that are now destroying the young immature pine.
A reasonable approach to the management of the forest sector is an inexhaustible natural resource. Economy settlements areas, under which its belt forests is based on forestry - generations of people working in the forestry enterprises and wood processing enterprises. Also, the forest is a source of firewood for heating in winter (remember that it is cold here and Siberia to -45 degrees Celsius), mushrooms, berries and herbs. If deforestation continues, the ruined ecosystem is not able to give any of the foregoing. In addition, despite the increase in deforestation and the huge amount of wood waste, rotting in the forest and wood processing enterprises on the price of firewood for local residents for 5 years has increased more than 50 times! For many, the problem of heating in winter is becoming harder and harder. If deforestation continues according to plan, then after 2-3 years in the forest will remain suitable for timber harvesting, forest industry will cease to exist, people are out of work - many villages will simply disappear. Sand storms and strong winds destroy micro-climate of the region and will make farming in this area is even more risky.

Worried about the situation local people established the Public Council for the Protection of Forests Altai region, which joined representatives of 12 districts of the province. Now they continue to collect signatures in support of the forest protection, but only 20,000 signatures were collected on the paper. Only the international community can solve this problem appeal to the President and the Government of the Russian Federation.

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