Press Release

Contact:
 Adlai Amor, Media Director
 Tel: (+1-202) 729-7736 Email: aamor@wri.org

New Maps Indicate Little is Left of Europe's Last Wilderness Forests

WASHINGTON, DC, October 10, 2001 - 

Using high resolution satellite images and old-fashioned fieldwork, a team of Russian experts has created new maps of Europe's last remaining wilderness forests. What they saw was not pretty: Northern European Russia is not the endless sea of forest wilderness that many people imagine. Few forest areas remain undisturbed and all are in the remote far north.

The results of their five-year effort, "The Last Intact Forest Landscapes of Northern European Russia," was released simultaneously today in Moscow and in Washington, DC by the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch and Greenpeace Russia.

Only 14 percent or 32 million hectares of the boreal or northern forests of European Russia remain in relatively undisturbed large blocks of at least 50,000 hectares each. Yet what little is left is at risk, since the most attractive parts for exploitation of these forests are unprotected by federal or local laws. The researchers say that the main threat is fragmentation by logging roads, geological survey lines, and fires that usually follow them. The environmental cost would be high if these remnants are logged.

"The significance of this work goes far beyond Russian forestry," says Dr. Alexander Isaev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a forest minister of the former Soviet Union, who reviewed the report together with scientists from Russia, Sweden and the U.S. "These are the last big forest wilderness areas of Europe and an important part of our common European heritage. We need to keep them wild and protected by law."

The authors of the report argue that these remaining intact boreal forests are comparatively cheap to conserve. "No forest guards are needed. The same remoteness and low productivity which has protected them until now will continue to do so," write A. Y. Yaroshenko, P. V. Potapov, and S. A. Turubanova. "Our last remaining examples of wild nature can be protected even under the very restrictive Russian budget for nature conservation."

These forests are unsuitable for sustainable wood production since they are poorly stocked and tree growth is slow. Timber revenues will not cover the cost of reforestation or silviculture and the cost of building forest roads.

Less than five percent of the volume logged in the Karelia, Komi, Arkhangelsk, and Perm regions come from the remaining intact boreal forests of European Russia. Most of this wood goes to countries in Western Europe. Several companies have now pledged to avoid buying wood from the remaining intact forests of the world.

"The maps of the intact forests of European Russia will be valuable to many parties involved in promoting responsible forestry," said Susanne Bergstrand, environment manager at the home furnishings company, IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/). It is one of the major supporters of the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch.

Mapping European Russia's intact boreal forests took a lot of detective work on the part of several Russian environmental organizations. They first looked at regular maps and excluded all obviously disturbed areas near roads and towns. Then they examined detailed satellite images to look for additional signs of disturbances, such as logging clearcuts, mines and agricultural fields, and then eliminated these areas.

They used them to outline blocks of intact forests greater than 50,000 hectares (i.e. at least the size of a square with a 22-km. or 14-mile side). Only sufficiently large blocks of forests are deemed capable of remaining intact, i.e. conserving natural, undisturbed populations of large animals while at the same time letting natural processes such as storms and fires run their course.

To verify the maps, the research team inspected 67 areas in the field to make sure that the satellite images were correctly interpreted. The resulting maps are the first of their kind, something which the Russian government has yet to create.

Later this year, Global Forest Watch and its Russian partners will release a similar map of the entire forests of Russia. Again this is expected to be another first.

The project succeeded by using a combination of new technologies, unprecedented cooperation among local Russian environmental groups, and a desire for transparency in the management of the country's natural resources. The maps and other information are made available to the public through the Internet (http://www.globalforestwatch.org or http://www.forests.ru or http://www.greenpeace.ru).

The same approach is being used to produce reports on the intact forests of Chile, Venezuela and Indonesia, all of which will be released in the next six months. Similar mapping work is going on in Canada, U.S., and Brazil. This is all part of a global effort to map and monitor the remaining frontier forests of the world - of which only half are left.

During the next 5 years, the Global Forest Watch network will span 21 countries and cover 80 percent of the world's remaining intact forests.