At the seminar for the teachers of Biology, Chemistry, and Geography – members of the district methodological association – conducted on 10 December, the Director of the Vazhgort secondary school, biologist Irina Anatolyevna Klishch presented her author program, devoted to the ichthyofauna of the Mezen river and its tributaries.
This pine grows on the territory of the Zanulsky divisional forestry unit of the Priluzje forestry unit and is the final demonstration point of the popular educational route “Natural forest dynamics of the taiga ecosystems”.
The young employees of the Silver Taiga Foundation took part in the International Forum of the Finno-Ugric Youth “FUROR-2014” held in the last days of November in the ancient village Pomozdino of the Ust-Kilom district.
At the traditional annual “Komi voytyr” conference in the Udora district, held this year in the form of breakout meetings, followed by a plenary meeting, special attention was paid to the problem of sustainable development of rural areas – district villages and settlements. That was precisely the topic of one of the sections, conducted with an active participation of the Silver Taiga Foundation and Regional Public Movement “Indigenous Women of the Komi Republic” representatives.
A seminar on “FSC certification in the Komi Republic: socio-economic aspects” for the managers and specialists of the enterprises belonging to the timber industry and wood processing industry was held on 18 November at the congress hall of the Finno-Ugric ethno-park in the village Yb. The seminar was organized by the Ministry of Industrial Development and Transport of the Komi Republic, Ministry of Economic Development of the Komi Republic, and Komi Regional Non-Profit Foundation “Silver Taiga”. It was attended by more than thirty representatives of the industry and administrations of the forest districts of the republic. FSC specialists of the certifying companies, Silver Taiga Foundation, and representatives of the enterprises holding a FSC certificate acted as teachers.
At the International conference devoted to the 10-year anniversary of the Vilhelmina Model Forests, situated in the province of Västerbotten in the north-west of Sweden, the Komi Model Forest was represented by the Silver Taiga Foundation Director Yury Pautov – the only Russian participant of the forum.
A series of workshops for the logging companies and contractors of OJSC “Mondi Syktyvkar”, organized and conducted by the Silver Taiga Foundation specialists during the autumn months, has come to an end.
Three educational seminars have been attended by about 50 people from different districts of the Komi Republic – all of them are involved either in the logging operations of Mondi Syktyvkar or allocation of logging sites, or forest use organization.
In particular, the necessity and feasibility of using up-to-date space images for planning of the wood felling, logging sites, and haulage roads, with account of the FSC certification requirements, have been actively discussed in class. The participants have also discussed the possibilities for the competent planning of the technology and spatial arrangement of the felling technological elements, considering the need to preserve the biodiversity, ecological and hydrological functions of the forest ecosystems (conservation of the key biotopes, key forest elements, landscape patchiness … ).
The participants have not only listened to the presentations and asked questions, but also visited felling sites of different years and discussed directly on-site the quality of the certification requirements fulfillment on these logging plots. Besides, they have been engages in the virtual planning and assessment of the felling based on the space imaging data. According to the majority of participants, the space imaging data significantly improves the process of strategic and tactical planning of the forest use, but at the same time, it requires certain knowledge and skills. Therefore, one of the outcomes of the discussion was the proposal to organize additional courses and trainings on GIS methods application in the forest use planning. The participants noted that GIS methods mastering is important both for the forest users and forest service, and other supervisory agencies.
Training on use of the space images for competent felling area planning, taking into account the FSC certification requirements.
The seminar leader Y. A. Pautov (Silver Taiga Foundation) gives a brief instruction to the logging plots allocators from OJSC “Mondi Syktyvkar” prior to the assessment of the next felling compliance with the certification requirements
D.A. Popov (OJSC “Mondi Syktyvkar”) and Y. A. Pautov (Silver Taiga Foundation) are discussing the possibilities of various space images use for a proper logging sites allocation
Mondi logging plots allocators are the most interested users of the new Remote Earth Sensing technologies for the forest use planning
N. V. Shuktomov: “Broken skidding trails and soil disturbances clearly “glow” red in the space images”
The leaders of the forest harvesting operations performed for OJSC “Mondi Syktyvkar” are getting familiar with the characteristics of another “field object” of the seminar
Silver Taiga Foundation ecologist N.V. Shuktomov: “We see everything from above, you can be sure of it!!!”
Valentina Semyаshkinа
Translated by Irina Sokolova
On the initiative of the Silver Taiga Foundation and AgroUdora cooperative, another meeting of the cooperative members, engaged in the fishing on the leased fishing grounds of the Irva river, was held on 30 October in Koslan. Almost the entire first half of the day the fishermen, mainly the residents of Glotovo and Koslan, together with the representatives of other interested organizations discussed the current situation in “AgroUdora”, and their most pressing concerns. Most importantly, they have talked about the prospects, development opportunities, and the best and most efficient ways to organize the fishing grounds management with the greater benefit for the local population. In the afternoon, the seminar on the challenges and opportunities of the public control, which is an important prerequisite of the sustainable resources management, was held in the framework of this meeting.
An annual research expedition on monitoring of the spawning grounds of the Atlantic salmon population in the Mezen was held this year between late September and early October. In addition to the Silver Taiga Foundation employees – ecologists Nikolay Shuktomov and Nikolay Shilov, and the driver Sergey Davydov, it was attended by a specialist of FSBI “Komirybvod” Alexey Politov, inspector of the Department of state control, supervision and protection of aquatic bioresources Andrey Druzhkov, as well as the representatives of the local community “Udorachi”.
At another meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Silver Taiga Foundation held on September 25, the issues relevant for the foundation life and activity were considered and the strategy for the near future was discussed.
The Coordinating Council is the supreme management body of the Silver Taiga Foundation and, according to its Charter, it performs the control functions, assesses the current situation, efficiency of the projects under implementation and potential of the new ones, ensures the observance by the Foundation of the goals it was created to accomplish.
The conducted meeting is already the second this year. The Foundation Director Yury Pautov has introduced the Coordination Council Chairman Jeremy Williams and its members Mikhail Karpachevsky, Przemyslaw Majewski, and Natalia Sedusova to the information on the main achievements of this year and the obstacles encountered during the project tasks implementation. The Council members have highly evaluated the High Conservation Value Forest project progress, especially an inclusion of the new SPNA on the base of the reserved valuable pristine forest massifs proposed by the Silver Taiga in the Republican program for development of the network of specially protected natural areas of the Komi Republic for the period up to 2030. Appreciation has also been expressed for the awareness-raising and educational work with the local population in the framework of the Model River Mezen project and the beginning of the joint programs with the Arkhangelsk region aimed at the monitoring of the Mezen salmon population.
An enthusiastic discussion was focused around such issues as the problems and prospects for the development of the Komi Model Forest, especially the Foundation interaction with the Russian and foreign partners in the new environment, where, in view of the sanctions imposed by the EU and other countries against Russia, implementation of many joint initiatives has proved problematic.
The Coordination Council members have become familiar with the results of the financial audit of the Silver Taiga Foundation activity for 2013, information on the financial situation of the organization, and the changes in the foundation staff, and discussed the dates of the next meeting. The Coordination Council members have made agreed decisions and developed recommendations the Foundation should adhere to in its current work regarding all the issues on the agenda.
Valentina Semyаshkinа
Translated by Irina Sokolova