“Model forest”: regional experience at the European level

The second annual conference within the frameworks of the “Baltic landscapes” project took place on November 5-8^th in the Polish town Mikolajki.

It will be recalled that “Baltic landscapes” is an international project aimed at the development of the new approaches in the forest landscapes management. Only considering the forest landscape holistically it is possible to competently and timely respond to such challenges as globalization of markets, climate change, necessity to more intensely use resources, problems of the environmental conservation, etc. The main target of the project is to facilitate the development of sustainable forest landscapes management.  The project objectives are implemented via creation of a network consisting of seven Model Forests located in four countries – Belorussia, Finland, Poland, and Sweden. Other member countries of the project – Estonia, Latvia, and Norway – are planning to disseminate the results. The project is funded by the European Union through the interregional programme INTERREG.

The conference held in Poland was already the second one within the frameworks of this project.

– “Baltic landscapes” is a large-scale project including seven countries and 14 partner organizations, for this reason, it’s quite complicated to ensure the continuous information exchange between the partners. Therefore, it was decided to carry out annual conferences for exchange of experience, discussion of the achievements and difficulties, – “Baltic landscapes” project coordinator, Silver Taiga Foundation Director Przemyslaw Majewski explained.

There were several tasks set for this conference. The most important one was to assess the degree of project implementation by different partners and support the regional teams by means of exchange of experience. A lot of attention was also paid to establishment of a general communication network.

The conference also included a “general” part targeted at informing of the local stakeholders about the “Baltic landscapes” project and delivery of certain proposals in the field of rivers management and integrated approach to the landscape planning to the local authorities.

Przemyslaw Majewski views the results of the conference favorably:

– We have achieved results on the main tasks. Of course, different partners have different achievements. Swedish Model Forests have already gained a many years’ experience in sustainable forest landscape management, whereas in the Model Forest of Belorussia and Poland all is starting almost from nothing and it’s required to overcome such start barriers as informing of the authorities and society, establishment of collaboration between the stakeholders. It’s important to note that all member countries have achieved a visible progress. It’s pleasant to see that not only the countries creating Model Forests are developing, but also Latvia, Estonia, and Norway. For example, in Latvia a possibility of Model Forest creation is under consideration, in Estonia this issue will be discussed as well.

At the project planning stage participation of three Russian Model Forests including Komi Model Forest, KovdozerskyModel Forest, and Pskov Model Forest was also foreseen. However, the agreement on cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation was not prolonged in 2009, and, as a result, financing of the Russian Model Forests participation became impossible. Nevertheless, financing of the Russian colleagues participationas consultants in the annual conference-meetings of the partners was covered by the project.

Experience of the Komi Model Forest is in-demand and is highly valued in Europe.  A lot of practices – such as development of a joint planning system together with the interested parties, landscape-wide actions, “binding” to the field data and cartographic information, mechanisms of collaboration with the local population and many other things – are actively used by the participants of the international project.

On the third day a break was made in the meetings: participants of the conference departed to the forests of Masuria– one of the “Baltic landscapes”. During the excursion they got acquainted with the activities made by the Polish forest service for increase of the forest areas productivity, on the one hand, and conservation of biological diversity, on the other hand. It turned out that many of biodiversity conservation activities are similar to those which are conducted in the Komi Republic. For instance, during the logging planning the Polish specialists leave the most valuable, from the point of view of ecology, territories (water-logged forests, swamps, forest river beds, old-growth forest), which are called key biotopes here in Komi and are also preserved by responsible loggers.

Interestingly, in Poland a lot of attention is also paid to conservation of a meadow biodiversity. Thus, to prevent the meadows overgrown with trees the mowing is performed twice a year. At the end of the excursion the participants of the conference visited a recreation object – a museum telling about the history of forestry in Poland. By the way, both the museum with the adjacent area and an ecological path are quite popular among the Polish population.

The program of the conference was supplemented by a short “master class” on the procedure for joining the Network conducted by a representative of the Model Forest Network Secretariat Brain Bonello.

Encouraged by the successful experience in the implementation of the first project stage and full of new ideas the participants said goodbye to each other until the next meeting which will be held in September of 2013in Minsk. This conference will be the final one at this stage of the project implementation. The participants will discuss the results and make the necessary adjustments. Besides, the project perspectives for 2014-2016and the concept of the application for further funding will be discussed at the conference in Belorussia. The implementation of the full-scale projects planned for 12-15 years.

According to Przemyslaw Majewski, “the most topical and interesting directions within the frameworks of the project are river management, practical application of the international conventions on sustainable development and territories management with account of the local population interests”, which is a long-term process and to get results in 2-3 years is simply unreal.

The possibility to include the Model Forests of the Russian north-west into the project as full value partners is still open. It requires a more favorable development of the relations between Russia and European Union.

 

 

Translated by Irina Sokolova
Photo: Elena Popova

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