The autumn afforestation campaign has begun in Ukraine. In total, the plan is to plant over 20 million saplings of main and secondary tree species during the season. Work has begun in the Carpathians, although the largest areas will be in the south.
This was reported by the State Enterprise ‘Forests of Ukraine’.
The Carpathian forests were traditionally the first to be restored, thanks to favourable weather conditions and sufficient soil moisture. For example, in the Verkhovyna Forest District in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, planting work was carried out across an area of 18.3 hectares, where spruce, fir, sycamore and beech saplings were planted.
The campaign will be launched in other regions as soon as weather conditions are favourable.
Preliminary plans
In total, ‘Forests of Ukraine’ plans to plant over 20 million seedlings across an area of 2,500 hectares. This involves both reforestation and the creation of new forest areas.
The largest-scale works are planned in the southern regions of Ukraine – covering an area of around 800 hectares. These are followed by the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions – around 700 hectares.
Characteristics of future forests
The state-owned enterprise has stated that, in order to create forests that are more resilient to climate change, pests and diseases, it will not adopt a monoculture approach. The forests will be planted as mixed stands – 60 per cent coniferous seedlings and around 40 per cent deciduous.
4.8 million seedlings will have a closed root system. This gives the plants a chance to keep their roots intact during planting.
"We plan to plant the largest number of these seedlings in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions (1.1 million), as well as in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions (800,000)," the company stated.
New forests will be planted in the south and east – covering 762 and 206 hectares respectively. The company has promised not to use intact natural ecosystems for this purpose – only degraded and low-productivity land previously transferred to it by local communities.
"Forests of Ukraine" also reported that the areas for afforestation had been identified back in the spring, in consultation with the public and environmentalists. All this was done to ensure that no harm was done to the steppe ecosystems.
As a reminder, last year ‘Forests of Ukraine’ came under criticism from environmental activists for destroying a section of steppe in the Chernihiv region. They decided to artificially replace the natural grassland ecosystem with a forest by planting oaks and walnut trees.
