TAIGA TERRITORY DEGRADATION FACTOR
has been investigated during the joint expedition of the Geography Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and Silver Taiga Foundation under the project devoted to the estimation of the territory degradation balance in boreal forests on the basis of Komi Model Forest.
In 2016 UN Convention on the desert advancing control developed a scientific outlook on the neutral balance of the territory degradation. According to the given outlook there are three key indicators of the neutral balance. They are the state and the changes of the ground cover, land productivity, carbon stock (above and under the surface). Territory degradation balance on the given territory (including forest areas) could be considered as neutral if all of these indicators remain the same for a certain period of time.
The expedition lasted for four days on the logged areas of different ages and on the south taiga close to the future Koigorodok National Park and in Noshul forestry unit.
Windfall of the different decomposition stages in the natural forest
The main goal of the field works is to estimate the carbon losses after logging, fire, building of roads and other human actions. The field works results will be processed and organized in a system but already now it is clear that he activity of the carbon dioxide gas flow out of the surface on fresh loggings (3 – 5 years of age) is three and more times greater than the same activity in the untouched forest ecosystems.
Surface respiration measuring
One more fact discovered during the expedition is that the certified forest companies systematically leave key forest elements and biotopes. They in some way compensate a dramatic reduction of the organic stock (wood) after logging and support a pattern structure of the forest landscape on the logged areas.
To define a neutral balance of the forest territory degradation the typology of taiga landscapes natural dynamics developed by Silver Taiga Foundation is going to be used.
Participants of the expedition
Photo by Alexander Borovlev and Andrey Ptichnikov
