FIRE AND SUSTAINABLE USE OF NORTHERN CONIFER FOREST IN RUSSIA

There now exists a negative attitude towards using fire clearing and especially unbroken fire control in forestry and forest use in Russia.
However, we know that the considerable conifer areas that were cut in recent years are being overgrown by deciduous species in the northern part of European Russia and most of them are now unforested spaces with heaps of discarded slash.
Forest loggers are reluctant to clear felled areas after logging and very often they prefer to cut new forests to provide more cubic metres.
On the other hand, the successful experience of fire clearing of felled areas in Finland, USA, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Australia has shown the necessity to study and to put into practice these positive results in forestry and forest use in Russia.
Certain scientific developments in Russia and successful experience of some technological methods of the previous decades and also some contemporary researches in this field make this problem urgent at present.
By comparative analysis of fired and unfired clearing of felled areas and lands damaged by wild fire, differences in rates of forest regeneration are demonstrated, with special reference to the Komi Republic.
On the basis of obtained quantitative characteristics of regeneration of felled areas and fire-damaged lands, some specific practical recommendations on using different methods of fire clearing of felled areas and using repeated fire in different forest conditions of northern European Russia are given.
These recommendations enable us to substantially improve the level of forest management of presently unforested lands.

IV International Conifer Conference

A.G. Naryshkin

fire dynamics, forest burning, forest regeneration, Komi Republic, recommendations, reforestation, wild fires

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2003.615.39