Contemporary state of forest fund of the Far East federal district

Abstract

The share of forest resources of the Far East accounts for 43 % of the forest area and 33 % of the timber reserves of the Russian Federation. In general, the Far East federal district has the largest forest resources among regions of Russia, while the Far East forests are an important factor in the ecological sustainability of the territory. A significant part of forest complex of the Far East federal district has been developed and transformed. Forests are mainly represented by conifer tree species, the share of clear cuts in the region is relatively small, 45 % of forest fund lands are classified as exploitable, and the allowable cut by regions is developed to 56 %. The dynamics of timber harvesting has a steady downward trend (compared to 2015 in 2019 decrease in volumes is 359.3 thousand m3), care felling is 6 % of the total share of actually harvested marketable timber. The areas of untimely inventory (forest planning) of forest lands exceed 75 %, while the wooded area of the territory is 60.5 % as a whole. The main threat to the preservation of forest fund of the Far East federal district is represented by fires (they tend to grow annually in number and area), clearcutting, which are carried out in most regions in the forests, where they are impractical, and illegal logging (annual damage is estimated at hundreds of millions of rubles, and the share of persons brought to criminal responsibility in relation to the number of initiated criminal cases does not exceed 31 %). Subjects reports on the volumes of reforestation mainly due to natural reforestation, with an insignificant share of agrotechnical maintenance. Article attempts to analyze the data of official statistics (Execution..., 2020), in order to identify the characteristic contemporary trends in the development of the situation in the state of the forest fund of the Far East.

Keywords

• state forest fund
• wooded area
• felling
• fires
• reforestation
• damage