Experts of NGO "Forest Initiatives and Society"repeatedly found signs of illegal designation of sanitary felling

NGO "Forest Initiatives and Society"(ForestCom) conducted an expert analysis and found some signs of illegal sanitary felling designationin SE “Yasinyaforestry and hunting economy”. According to the inspection resultsof certain areas, it was found that during the felling a number of forest management rules and regulations have been violated, which, unfortunately, happens quite often.

According to the cutting rules,the cutting areashould be delineatedby wooden site poles, on which the reason for felling and the area are written. Only one such pole was found on the territory inspected by the experts, so the margins of the cutting area are unclear.

White firpredominates in this forest land of SE “Yasinyaforestry and hunting economy”. Scientific research proves that in Transcarpathia, white fir is particularly resistant to pests, even suggesting that among treesof these species there are carriers of natural immunity to infections, which can be used to increase forest resistance and natural regeneration. There are many other ways to control pests, besides clear cutting: increasing the number of natural enemies (birds), setting traps, etc.

But, the most striking fact is that the stumps of the felled trees, that were found during the inspection, were healthy.Moreover, some live trees designated to sanitary felling, were healthy with green crowns. As a reminder, the reason for sanitary felling is damage to trees by pests to prevent their spreading to healthy trees. And in general, there is a "selective sanitary felling" of only damaged trees (trees that are visually dead or their needles and bark are already starting to shrivel and fall off). Why did the SE “Yasinyaforestry and hunting economy” decided to conduct here the clear-cut? This question is still open, because according to the current Sanitary Rules in the forests of Ukraine for the designation of high-mountain forests for clear sanitary felling, all trees must be dead (see item 27, paragraph 8).

This situation is an example of the fact that it is a crime to cut down such ecologically valuable forests without open data with photos and videos of the damaged trees, effective control and responsible expert analysis of the causes of trees dieback and mortality.

Currently, we are waiting for justification for the felling, permitting documents and the cutting area scheme (materials of the instrumental survey), as well as availability of permitting documents for clear sanitary felling of the Lazeshchanysubunit of SE "Yasinya forestry and hunting economy" comp.21 subcomp.27; 34.