Preventing Rash Action
The Foundation’s staff conducted a training course in FSC certification environmental aspects for employees of SLDK ltd.
How do you correctly delineate landscape boundaries? How do you define rare species? Why is it important to imitate natural forest dynamics when cutting? These and many other questions were answered by Silver Taiga’s representatives Nikolay Shilov and Alexander Borovlyov for SLDK ltd. personnel during the three-day course.
The field course was arranged at leased areas of SLDK ltd. near Diaserya, Ust-Kulom district, following the company administration request. On 16, 18 and 19 June, 60 people, including foremen, delineation experts and harvester operators, were trained. The participants were divided into 3 groups. Each of them had to pass a final test to complete the course.
SLDK’s employees are taking a test
“During the first days we were preparing the demonstration routes. Positive examples turned out to prevail over the negative ones. We didn’t find any gross violations, however we identified some minor issues. We were pleased to see that almost all participants of the course knew the basics of FSC certification. We covered all major aspects of soil preservation and minimizing impact on water bodies at logging plots. They were very much interested in identification and conservation of key biotopes, rare plant species, and topics related to use and disposal of fuel and lubricants. I’d like to note that compliance with the certification requirements is more than just a formality. We found some species recorded in the Red Book of the Komi Republic in some key biotopes which the company had decided to exclude from cutting plan,” said the environmental expert Nikolay Shilov.
The birds’ nesting sites have been conserved by the certification standards
All participants of the course were provided with checklists and satellite images demonstrating logging violations. Upon completion of the course each of the participants had to get a clear understanding of the landscape that is to be left after cutting is done. A special focus was paid by the Foundation’s experts on the trees which cannot be cut in any case.
SLDK ltd. passed the audit and got the FSC certificate two years ago. Before that time the company had had a so-called group certificate jointly with Mondi Syktyvkar. The reality is that management of SLDK ltd. is interested in upgrading the FSC certification qualification of its employees, which proves its serious approach to environmental aspects of forest use.
Photos by Sergey Davydov and Nikolay Shilov
