In Zhytomyr region, in the Polissky Nature Reserve, the Scientific and Technical Council approved the cutting of firebreaks with a width of 50 and 100 meters on an area of more than 170 hectares with a total volume of more than 17,100 m3.
Eco-activists from the public organization "Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group" on Facebook suggested that the real purpose of such felling is to make money from the sale of wood.
They emphasized that to prevent forest fires, it is necessary to:
- analyze the history of ignition sources;
- predict the development of fires;
- create a system of early detection and rapid response to fires, etc.
Eco-activists proposed to put a pickup with a fire-fighting module on duty in the fire-hazardous period on the outskirts of the village, from where forest fires start. It will be much cheaper and more effective than spending large sums of money every year to clear vegetation of already cut firebreaks.
"The gaps themselves can be part of this system, but they should be designed only where there are the greatest risks of fire transition," the authors explained.
They added that Soviet-style firebreaks are ineffective, as the systematic large fires in the Chernobyl zone proved.
It is noted that the main gaps are planned to be cut along the border with the Olevsky Forest Farm.
"Why can't we negotiate with the forest farm and cut down on its territory, and not in the reserve? Perhaps because despite the fact that the nature reserve is an area with the strictest protection status and that even excursions on its territory are prohibited, the reserve successfully sells the wood harvested from the burners on the commodity exchange," the message says.
Eco-activists said that currently changes to the forest management materials of the reserve must be approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in Transcarpathia, the Yasinyan forest farm in the management plan for the next 10 years planned to increase the annual volume of felling for main use by 45%, of which 80% is continuous.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, detectives of the State Bureau of Investigation uncovered an organized criminal group of foresters and officials in Prykarpattia, who cut down trees worth more than 2.2 million hryvnias in the national natural park "Hutsulshchyna".
