Are the Russian forests disappearing?

A. Shvidenko and S. Nilsson

Anatoly Shvidenko and Sten Nilsson are with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.

An analysis of the state and development of Russian forest resources, including consideration of the accuracy and reliability of Russian forest inventory' methods.

Among the general public and the scientific community worldwide the viewpoint is often that the Russian forests are "disappearing". For example, Barr and Braden (1988), professors of geography specializing in natural resources, state: "In many cases [in the world], timber has been utilized in a onetime, mining form of exploitation, and the result is a landscape devoid of trees or with forests lacking commercially viable stands. Sadly, much of the forest of the USSR appears to have gone this route... The deforestation in the European USSR probably has resulted in extensive uneconomic areas of forests characterized by dominant stands of poor quality poplar, birch and alder, and sparse, irregular, or immature stands of conifers."

Stanglin (1992), an environmental advocate, claims that the deforestation rate of the Siberian forests is about 2 million ha per year, while Greenpeace International (1994) affirms that "three million ha of forests are destroyed in Russia each year as a result of logging operations".

Malcolm-Smith (1992), a journalist writing in The European, claims that "the world's largest remaining forest, covering huge swathes of northern Siberia, is under threat from uncontrolled logging. Like the tropical rainforests, much of which have been destroyed, all that remains once the trees have gone is an inhospitable wasteland. The disaster has not yet reached the scale of the tropical rainforests, but environmental groups in Russia and other countries are afraid it is just a matter of time."

Poor forest management, insufficient forest protection, and huge losses of wood at harvests and during wood processing have repeatedly been reported (Isaev, 1991; Nilsson et al., 1992; Shvidenko and Nilsson, 1994). Illustrations of the exhaustive nature of forest utilization in Russia in recent decades are plentiful (Petrenko, 1990; Sheingauz, 1989). For other references, see Scott and Gordon, 1992; Golubchikov, 1992; Rosencrantz and Scott, 1992; Knight, 1992; Gusewelle, 1992; Cejka, 1992; Dudley, 1992; Greenpeace International, 1993; Aksin, 1993; Lehtinen, 1993; Luskotov, 1993; Tracy, 1994; Abusow, 1995; Acharya, 1995; Dudley, Jeanrenaud and Sullivan, 1995; European Parliament, 1995; Stanners and Bourdeau, 1995; Newell and Wilson, 1996.

However, explicit conclusions on the state and the development of forest areas and growing stock of Russian forests (or any forests for that matter) can only be based on a numerical analysis of changes in inventory data of forest areas over an extended period. Moreover, the inventory data must be reliable and accurate.

This article, therefore, pursues two main goals. The first is to present a brief analysis of the consistency, accuracy and reliability of the Russian Federation's forest inventory methods. The second is to determine whether the Russian forests are, in fact, "disappearing". To do this, the article considers the dynamics, over time, of some important indicators such as forested area (FA),¹ growing stock (GS) and distribution of areas covered by the most important species (the so-called main forest-forming species). The basic statistical information used for the analyses was derived from data of the State Forest Account (SNKh SSSR, 1962; Gosleshoz SSSR, 1968; 1976; 1982; and 1986; Goscomles SSSR, 1990; 1991 a; Federal Forest Service of Russia, 1995) and from a number of other official Russian publications. Because of a lack of compatible inventory data the analysis is limited to the 1961 - 1993 period.

1 The classification of Russian forest land-use categories is rather complicated. The total area of land managed by forest authorities constitutes the forest fund (FF) The forest fund is divided into two categories: forest land (FL) and non-forest land (NFL). Forest land includes: i) forested areas (FA) which - according to Russian forest legislation - are areas covered by forests with a relative stocking rate of 0.4 or more for young stands; and ii) 0.3 and more for other stands, and unforested areas (UFA) The relative stocking is determined as the ratio between the sum of the basal areas of actual stand at breast height and the sum of basal areas of corresponding stands according to yield tables. Unforested areas include sparse forests, hums, dead forests and grassy glade areas (non-regenerated, old post-fire areas).

Inventory methods: accuracy and reliability of data

There is one major source of information concerning all Russian forests: the State Forest Account (SFA), an accounting inventory which is updated every five years. The SFA sets out specific procedures for collecting and updating data on the status of forests (Gosleshoz SSSR, 1982). Three basic methods have been used in Russian forest inventories: lesoustroistvo or forest inventory and planning (FIP), aerotaxation (aerial inventory methods) and remote sensing.

The FIP has been and still is the most common type of forest inventory method used in Russia, and it is carried out in managed forests every ten to 15 years. The FIP presents a detailed description of each primary inventory and management unit; the areas of the units vary widely (from 3 to 5 and 30 to 50 ha), depending on the management regime.

The principal inventory method is the ground ocular estimate, which is a measurement of the most important indicators in the forest stands under investigation. Aerial photographs are widely used for separating the primary inventory units and for mapping forests on different scales. For the past several decades, the FIP has been conducted every year on 35 to 45 million ha of forest land.

The FIPs provide accurate estimates of the growing stock in each primary inventory unit (a standard error of + 10 to 15 percent at 95 percent probability is acceptable for stands that are considered for final felling and thinning. For stands of other categories the standard error is in the range of 20 to 30 percent). Numerous control inventories, based on samplings of large territories (Antonaitis and Repshis, 1973; Fedosimov, 1986) and of individual primary inventory units in different regions of the Russian Federation (Pavlov and Demidov, 1971; Shvidenko, 1981), show that the FIP method underestimates the growing stock in mature and overmature stands by 5 to 15 percent and sometimes more.

Vast areas in the north are unmanaged and unused forest fund (FE;) territories by 1956 only 19 percent of the forests in the north were classified as managed forests and inventoried by FIP. Therefore, a special method of aerotaxation was implemented to provide an overall inventory of Russian forests. Aerotaxation of forests not previously inventoried (basically in the European north, northern Siberia and the Russian Far East) started in 1948. By the summer of 1956, about 200 state forest enterprises (the managing body of the state forests) and a total forest fund area of about 900 million ha had been inventoried by aerotaxation (Chilingarajan, 1959; Kostjuchenko, Teleshkin and Karmazin, 1967). Naturally, areas of primary inventory units varied widely and were large (from several hundred to several thousand hectares), and the accuracy of area and growing stock estimations was low. Subsequently, improved remote sensing inventory methods showed that the aerotaxation in the vast Siberian territories significantly overestimated the growing stock by up to 20 to 25 percent and sometimes by even 30 to 50 percent (Danjulis et al., 1989; Shvidenko et al., 1996).

Beginning in the 1960s, unexploited northern forests, measured earlier by aerotaxation, were inventoried by remote sensing methods using aerial and satellite photographs (Gosleshoz SSSR, 1987). An average annual area of 10 to 25 million ha has been inventoried with this method. Usually a three-stage stratified sampling procedure is used. For large areas, the level of accuracy using remote sensing methods is high, with a standard error of +3 percent at 95 percent probability for the growing stock of a forest enterprise (Sukhikh and Sinitsin, 1979).

By 1990, 665.8 million ha of the forest fund in Russia had been inventoried by the FIP process. Between 1967 and 1990, some 380 million ha were inventoried using remote sensing methods. By 1995, the areas that were initially inventoried solely by aerotaxation and had not been inventoried by any other method later accounted for about 90 million ha in the extreme northern forest tundra and in pure tundra areas. The current state of forests in these territories is unknown but the impact of these areas on aggregated data on Russian forests is negligible.

Other uncertainties in aggregated data of the SFA are due to the fact that inventories of individual regions were taken at wide and irregular intervals, and the methods used to update information at certain dates were not consistent during the 1961-1993 period and in some cases were very simple and imprecise (Sinitsin, 1990). In addition, inventory manuals have been modified since 1964. These changes produced artificial "improvements" in the inventory results that were due to changes in classifications and definitions, e.g. classification of mixed forests as forests dominated by coniferous, or weakening of technical requirements that regarded regenerated areas as forested areas. In spite of these shortcomings, the SFA data serve as a basis for analyzing the state and the overall development of Russian forests. Comparisons with inventory systems used in the Northern Hemisphere show that the aggregated Russian forest inventory data are, at least, of the same quality as those of the United States and Canada (Raile, 1994).

Development of forest area categories and growing stock

The development of some selected forest indicators during 1961 - 1993 is evidenced in Tables 1, 2 and 3. Based on the data presented in the tables, we can identify several basic features of the development of Russian forests. It should be noted that reliable conclusions on the changes in forested area and growing stock cannot he based solely on data of forests under state forest management because, over time, forests have been redistributed among different ministries and land-use categories.

From 1961 to 1993 the forested areas of Russian forests increased by 68 million ha (9.8 percent). This increase occurred mainly in forests under state forest management (53.8 million ha) owing to significant afforestation efforts (notwithstanding survival rates of only 55 to 60 percent); and owing to natural regeneration associated with improvements in forest fire control.

From 1961 to 1993 the total growing stock of all forests increased by 3200 million m³, but growing stock of forests under state forest management decreased by 1100 million m³. A significant decrease in growing stock (by about 5000 million m³) was observed in coniferous forests under state forest management. These forests are the primary source of industrial harvest. A significant decrease in the growing stock of mature and overmature coniferous forests species in the category all forests occurred between 1983 and 1993 (43000 million m³ in 1983, 40300 million m³ in 1988 and 35300 million m³ in 1993). This corresponds to a total decrease of 7700 million m³ and the major decline occurred in Asian forests (Siberia).

From 1983 to 1993 the total accumulated harvest (adjusted for unmonitored harvest according to Backman, 1995) was about 1360 million m³ in Asian Russia, with a 2000 million m³ decline in the total growing stock (Tables 3 and 4). Over the same period, the harvest in European Russia was 40 percent higher than that in Asian Russia and the growing stock increased by 2300 million m³ in European Russia. Thus, factors other than harvests have been driving the total growing stock decline in Asian Russia.

The indicator which is probably moderately free from different disturbances (e.g. changes in areas and land-use categories) is the average growing stock by age group. There is a significant increase in the average growing stock (ranging from 20 to 50 percent) observed for all age groups and species with two exceptions: mature coniferous species (owing to the forestry policy during the past decade to harvest the best and most productive forests) and young deciduous stands (mainly young stands from natural post-fire and postharvest regeneration). In our opinion, the increase in the average growing stock is due to the decrease in frequency and severity of non-stand-replacing disturbances in age classes other than mature coniferous forests and young deciduous forests (disturbances caused by on-ground fires, pests, insects etc., but disturbances that did not completely destroy the forest stands).

In European Russia, the average growing stock increased from 109.8 to 126.7 m³ per ha for all forests from 1961 to 1993. All of the European Russian economic regions, except the northern region, have experienced a significant increase in the average growing stock (up to 44.7 percent in the central Chernozyemny region and 56.1 percent in the northwestern region). The decrease in the average growing stock in the northern region mainly resulted from overharvesting (the average growing stock decreased in the Arkangelsk oblast [administrative region] by 8-9 percent and in the Karelia Republic by 9.6 percent). In the Murmansk oblast, which was subject to years of intensive industrial exploitation in addition to severe air pollution, the average growing stock decreased by 13.5 percent.

TABLE 1. Development of different categories of forest areas and growing stock in all Russian forests, 1961-1993

Indicators	1961	1966	1973	1978	1983	1988	1993	1993-1961 Relative change
	(million ha)
Forest fund	1162.9	1161.9	1161.4	1186.2	1187.7	1182.6	1180.9	1.02
Forest land	848.1	863.0	862.1	872.3	880.5	884.1	886.5	1.05
Forested area	695.5	705.6	729.7	749.5	766.6	771.1	763.5	1.10
Forested area in European Russia	148.9	161.3	158.8	163.5	164.4	166.0	166.6	1.12
Forested area in Asian Russia	546.6	544.3	570.8	586.0	602.2	606.1	597.0	1.09
Total forested area available for harvest	295.6	342.9	338.6	345.6	385.3	406.2	351.1	1.19
	(percentage)
Total forested area as % of total land area	40.8	41.3	42.8	43.9	44.9	45.2	44.7	1.10
	(thousand million m³)
Total growing stock	377.5	77.0	78.7	80.7	81.9	81.7	80.7	1.04
Growing stock in European Russia	16.3	17.0	17.4	18.7	19.3	20.3	21.1	1.29
Growing stock in Asian Russia	61.2	60.0	61.3	62.0	62.6	61.4	59.6	0.97
Growing stock total in mature and overmature coniferous forests	51.1	48.0	46.4	45.3	43.0	40.0	35.3	0.69

TABLE 2. Development of different categories of forest areas in the Russian Federation under state forest management, 1961-1993, including long-term leases¹

Indicators	1961	1966	1973	1978	1983	1988	1993	1993-1961 Relative change
	(million ha)
Forest fund	1110.6	1105.6	1103.4	1123.0	1119.7	1115.8	1110.5	1.00
Total forested area	652.0	657.4	678.9	694.3	708.5	713.5	705.8	1.08
Area of conifer-dominated stands	499.5	489.64	508.3	512.7	526.5	526.4	507.7	1.04
Area of hand deciduous species2	34.2	24.24	17.6	17.0	17.5	17.1	17.3	0.51
Area of soft deciduous species3	102.5	111.84	108.2	108.5	110.8	109.7	113.2	1.10
Total forested area covered by mature stands	437.1	381.9	407.1	387.8	376.7	357.3	340.1	0.78
Accumulated area of forest plantations transferred to forested area	2.0	5.9	9.7	11.7	14.5	16.5	17.3	8.65
Unforested area of which:	152.6	144.2	124.8	116.1	106.7	106.2	74.15	-
- unregenerated harvested areas	14.0	3.3	9.5	10.2	8.6	8.6	8.5	0.61
- burns, dead stands and grassy glades	70.6	68.4	51.5	43.9	36.8	34.9	31.9	0.45
- sparse forests	68.0	62.5	63.8	62.0	61.3	62.7	33.75	-
Non-forest land	311.4	300.8	296.8	309.0	300.5	292.2	285.3	0.92

1 Forest management transferred to bodies other than forest agencies, normally to agricultural agencies for temporary use.
² Oak, beech, hornbeam, stone birch, etc.
³ Aspen, birch.
⁴ Data given without long-term leases.
⁵ The 1993 inventory divided sparse forests (a part of unforested areas) into natural sparse forests (growing under severe climatic conditions, e.g. on the beeline in the north or in subalpine zones) with an area of 41 A million ha and anthropogenic sparse forests which are subject to reforestation.

TABLE 3. Development of growing stock and its utilization in Russian forests under state forest management, including long-term leases

Indicators	1961	19661	1973	1978	1983	1988	1993	1993-1961 Relative change
	(thousand million m3)
Growing stock of which:	74.1	73.5	74.0	74.7	75.4	74.7	73.0	0.99
- conifer-dominated stands	62.8	60.7	61.0	60.6	61.3	60.2	57.7	0.96
- herd deciduous species	1.6	1.5	1.8	1.8	1.8	1.8	1.9	1.19
- soft deciduous species	8.7	9.5	10.2	10.7	10.9	11.3	12.1	1.39
Total growing stock in mature forests	56.1	52.8	52.	51.5	49.1	46.3	42.0	0.75
Growing stock in mature coniferous stands	48.8	45.6	44.6	44.3	41.8	38.7	34.2	0.70
	(million m³)
Annual average increment2	789.2	792.1	821.1	855.0	874.2	844.1	830.0	1.05
Annual allowable cut2	648.9	608.5	600.9	610.0	613.6	615.0	529.0	0.77
Final fellings	321.2	331.1	335.5	318.1	299.0	319.6	174.2	0.52
Thinnings	13.6	15.4	24.0	24.8	25.9	26.9	19.9	1.46

1 The Forest State Account (FSA) from 1966 did not account for growing stock in long-term leased forests.
² The annual average increment is defined as an average ratio between growing stock and age, weighted by area; the annual allowable cut, i.e. the long-term norm for a sustainable harvest level, as well as final fellings and thinnings are all accounted in cubic metres of commercial wood. The official conversion factor for converting commercial wood to growing stock is 1.12 percent (Goscomles SSSR, 1991b).

In Asian Russia, during the 1961-1993 period the average growing stock for total forests decreased from 112 to 998 m³ per ha for all forests. Numerous regions have experienced a significant decrease in the average growing stock because of insufficient fire protection. In the Sakhalin region, where a combination of insufficient fire protection and intensive harvesting occurred, there was a decrease of 15.7 percent. For the Russian Federation as a whole, the average growing stock decreased during the same period from 120.2 to 114.3 m³ per ha.

Thus, there has been a slight increase in the total growing stock for the Russian Federation, but a severe decline of the total growing stock in Siberia. This latter decline has occurred primarily in mature and overmature coniferous forests and is probably caused by disturbances other than harvests. In parallel, there has been a decline in the average growing stock for the Russian Federation and total forests with a severe decrease in Siberia and a strong increase in European Russia. The main cause of the decline in Siberia is probably caused by disturbances other than harvests in mature and overmature coniferous forests, and the increase in the European part is probably a result of reduced disturbances from fires, pests, insects and so forth in specific species and age classes.

The qualitative impoverishment of forests in regions with industrial harvesting can be illustrated by two important regions: the European north and the Russian Far East. The depletion in the European north is mainly due to local overharvesting. In the region as a whole, about 82 percent of the total annual allowable cut (based on a sustainable harvest level) was harvested during the 19701990 period. But Karelia, for example, had a total overharvest in coniferous species of 119 percent over the 1987-1989 period. And, in the Murmansk region, the actual harvest in pine stands varied from 102 to 223 percent of the annual allowable cut, and many enterprises overharvested the annual allowable cut of coniferous species by a factor of 1.5 to 2.

The situation is different in the Russian Far East. Only large logs were harvested and the removal from harvested areas was roughly 45 to 65 percent of the growing stock of the mixed stands dominated by coniferous species in this region. This resulted in a significant decrease in areas dominated by cedar (Pinus koraiensis). Total forested area decreased by 17.2 percent (from 3.97 million to 3.29 million ha) in Far Eastern forests under state management between 1966 and 1993, but the cedar forests in Khabarovsk kraj decreased by about 60 percent (from 1.46 million to 0.56 million ha). The exhaustive character of logging is evident. Between 1965 and 1988, about 8 million ha of the most productive stands were harvested in the form of clear-cuts as a rule in the Russian Far East. The 1988 inventory identified 34 percent of the harvested areas as unregenerated harvesting areas.

A rough aggregated estimate of the biospheric role of the Russian forests may be based on the dynamics of the actual growing stock. According to the official statistics, the growing stock of all Russian forests increased by 3200 million m³ during the period 1961 - 1993. The average ratio between the carbon content of forest vegetation and the green growing stock can be estimated to be 0.4 Mg of C per cubic metre of wood (Alexseev and Birdsey, 1994; Isaev et al., 1995; Lakida, Nilsson and Shvidenko, 1995). It may therefore be concluded that the total carbon content in the vegetation of Russian forest ecosystems has increased by 4.1 percent (from 31 to 32.3 Pg of C during the period studied), based on calculations presented in Lakida, Nilsson and Shvidenko (1996) and Shvidenko and Nilsson (1996).

If we attempt to consider systematic errors of the inventory data discussed earlier, we get a somewhat different picture of the development of the growing stock. Based on available data on accuracy and dynamics of areas inventoried by different methods, we developed a simple system to recalculate the development of the growing stock from 1961 to 1993. The correction factor for the FIP was assumed to vary from +15 (1961) to +8 percent (1993) in Asian Russia and from +12 to +6 percent in European Russia. The correction factor for aerotaxation data was assumed to vary from -25 to -10 percent in Asian Russia and from -18 to -6 percent in European Russia during the same period. No systematic errors were assumed for remote sensing methods. The results of the reconstruction of the dynamics are given in Table 4. In this case we get an increase of the growing stock for all Russian forests of 9900 million m³ or about 13 percent for the period studied. Using these "reconstructed dynamics" of the growing stock, the increase of the "photosynthetic capacity" is estimated to be 13.3 percent.

The above calculations are approximative, but there is no evidence in available statistics of a decline in the biological productivity of Russian forests during the period studied.

Conclusion

This article has identified three basic features of the development of Russian forest area categories and growing stock that have occurred between 1961 and 1993. First, for total forests in Russia during the 1961-1993 period, only the growing stock indicator for mature coniferous forests shows a significant decline (Table 1 and, for the other indicators, Tables 1, 2 and 3). All other indicators show a stable or increased development. It is likely that the decline in growing stock of coniferous forests has been more severe in forests under state forest management than in other forests (Table 3). The reason for this is that a dominant part of industrial harvest takes place in state-managed forests.

At the regional level there has been a stable or increased development of the growing stock per hectare in European Russian forests but a rather severe decline in Asian Russian forests; this latter situation is mainly driven by a dramatic decline in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East in mature coniferous stands. Also, several subregions in both European Russia and Asian Russia suffered severe declines during the 1961-1993 period.

Studies of the 1983-1993 period show somewhat different results. Official figures in Tables 1, 2 and 3 indicate that there has been a significant decline in the total growing stock. This development is driven by a decrease in the total growing stock of coniferous species (discussed above), especially in mature coniferous forests. For European Russia, however, the data show that there has been a substantial increase in the total growing stock. Thus, the decline in the growing stock for all of the Russian Federation is caused by a severe decline in Asian Russia during this period. The decline is most serious in those forests under state forest management.

The strong decrease in growing stock in Asian Russia between 1983 and 1993 is not due to harvesting. Rather it seems to be mainly due to other disturbances such as forest fire, pests, insects and technogenic activities. To some extent the severe decline can also be due to lag effects in inventory reporting, which would mean that the decreases in Asian Russia started in the late 1970s and early 1980s but were not identified until the 1983 inventory.

If we attempt to consider identified systematic errors in the inventory data we obtain a total increase for the growing stock of 9800 million m³ during 1961-1993 for total Russian forest area. For this period, the increase in European Russia can be estimated to 5800 million m³ and in Siberia to 4000 million m³. But even in this calculation a severe decline of 2000 million m³ in Siberia's total growing stock can he identified for the period 1983-1993.

Both official statistics (Tables 1, 2 and 3) and "reconstructed" data (Table 4) show that the bioproductivity (photosynthetic capacity) of the total Russian forest area, which is an indicator of the forests' biospheric role, has increased during the 1961 - 1993 period.

The second feature of recent Russian forest dynamics is that the quality of Russian forests was seriously impoverished between 1961 and 1993 (with a decreased extent of valuable tree species, decreased log sizes, regional overharvesting, etc.). Regions with a developed infrastructure have been substantially overharvested (especially in European Russia). In addition, the harvest has been carried out through so-called creaming processes over vast areas containing large trees and special species; this has seriously the quality of the forests (especially in the Russian Far East).

TABLE 4. Reconstructed development of total growing stock in all Russian forests, 1961-1993

Indicators	1961	1966	1973	1978	1983	1988	1993
	(percentage)
Forest fund area inventoried by FIP1 in European Russia	36	41	44	56	75	88	94
Forest fund area inventoried by FIP1 in Asian Russia	9	22	30	38	52	59	60
	(thousand million m³)
Reconstructed growing stock in European Russia	16.4	16.5	17.3	18.3	19.2	21.4	22.2
Reconstructed growing stock in Asian Russia	58.6	59.2	60.2	62.1	64.6	64.2	6,2.6
Reconstructed total growing stock for Russia	75.0	75.72	77.5	80.4	84.5	86.5	84.8
	(percentage deviation)
Deviation between reconstructed and official FSA3 data for total growing stock in Russia	-3.3	-1.7	-1.5	-0.4	+3.2	+4.9	45.1

1 Forest, inventory and planning.

² The long-term leased forests were not inventoried with respect to growing stock in 1966 (about 2.2 percent of the total growing stock).

³ Forest State Account.

Third, there are still huge areas of unused, unexploited and unmanaged forests in Russia. This situation and the analyses presented in this article make it difficult to justify the premise that Russian forests are disappearing from a global perspective.

In spite of the existing shortcomings in Russian forest management, the stability and the capacity of natural regeneration of Russian boreal forests seem to be extremely high. A more detailed description of the development of Russian forests over time is available in Shvidenko and Nilsson (1996).

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