The head of the Ministry of Environment was caught unaware of the basics of forest ecology

The head of the Ministry of Environment was caught unaware of the basics of forest ecology shutterstock
Katerina Belousova

The forest does not disappear, but is in constant and complex dynamics

Eco-activist and military officer Andriy Plyga criticized the statement of the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Ruslan Strilets, regarding the futility and negative impact of dead wood on the health of the forest.

On his Facebook page, Plyga accused Strelits and his team of incompetence, because dead wood in the forest plays a significant ecological role.

"I want to appeal to Mr. Ruslan Strilets: stop saying frankly incompetent things in an interview about forests," he wrote.

The ecoactivist emphasized that dead wood is a key and integral element of a healthy forest, and this knowledge is the basis of forest ecology.

"If we do not use the stagnant forest today as a commercial raw material, it will disappear, and the state will still be forced to spend money to ensure that it does not harm one or another part of the ecosystem," Strilets said in an interview for the newspaper Ukrainian truth.Life.

However, Plyga noted that in the forest, the life of about half of all organisms, animals, plants and fungi is connected precisely with dead wood. The forest does not "disappear", but is in a constant and complex dynamic, where old/dead trees/sites are replaced by young ones that take their place.

As EcoPolitic reported before, a scandal broke out in the Ukrainian segment of Facebook with the participation of a number of officials and specialists of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources due to a number of allegedly humorous photos under the title "Time schedule of an eco-activist".

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