Forest tracts of the northern and southern belts

Forest resources of Russia.


Forests are the main type of vegetation in Russia, they occupy 45% of its territory.

Forests play a huge role in the Russian economy as a source of timber and many types of raw materials - vegetable (resins, mushrooms, berries, medicinal plants) and animals (meat, furs, valuable medicines - antlers, beaver and musk stream, bear bile, etc. .). In the life of many peoples of Russia, the forest is the main living environment on which the entire way of life is based (Finno-Ugric peoples, Evenks, etc.). For the Russian population, the forest is the most important recreational resource. Unlike most Western peoples, amateur picking of mushrooms, berries, medicinal plants and hunting is not only an economic support, but also an absolutely necessary part of the way of life. In the landscapes of Russian painting and literature, both professional and folklore, forests absolutely prevail over other landscapes.


Russia has the largest forest reserves in the world. In 1993, the area of the forest part of the forest fund was 886.5 million hectares, and the total timber stock was 80.7 billion m3, which is respectively 21.7 and 25.9% of the world reserves. The excess of the second figure over the first suggests that Russia has more mature and more productive forests than the rest of the planet as a whole.

Forests play a huge role in the gas balance of the atmosphere and the regulation of the Earth's planetary climate. The total balance for the forests of Russia, calculated by B.N. Moiseev, amounted to 1789064.8 thousand tons for carbon dioxide, and 1299019.9 thousand tons for oxygen. Annually, 600 million tons of carbon are deposited in the forests of Russia. These gigantic volumes of gas migration significantly stabilize the gas composition and climate of the planet.
The main forest reserves of Russia are concentrated in Siberia and the Far East, as well as in the European North. The maximum percentage of forested area is observed in the Irkutsk region and Primorsky region, they are somewhat lower in the south of the Khabarovsk region, in the south of Yakutia, in the Yenisei part of the Krasnoyarsk region and in the Komi Republic, Vologda, Kostroma and Perm regions. However, forest cover coincides with high timber reserves only in Primorsky Krai and, to a lesser extent, in the south of Krasnoyarsk Krai. In other regions where the most productive forests grow (in the Caucasus, Altai, the European Center), forest cover is noticeably reduced, and to a large extent due to human activities .


The regions of the south of European Russia - Rostov, Volgograd, Astrakhan, Orenburg, Stavropol Territory and the Republic of Kalmykia, as well as flat tundra regions, are the poorest in forests. It should be noted that in a significant part of these territories, the modern forest cover is noticeably lower than natural. Russians in the steppe zone and large-scale reindeer herders in the south of the tundra have significantly reduced the area of forests.





Forest areas on the territory of Russia have been constantly declining for 500 years, but, of course, most sharply - in the 20th century. But still, this process affected Russia to a lesser extent than the main world. It is believed (Vinogradov et al.) [3] that in the last 10 thousand years 2/3 of the forests of Eurasia have been reduced. For Russia, this indicator has not been estimated, but it is certainly less than 1/3.
The total forest area for 10 years (1983 - 1993) in Russia even increased by 6 million hectares, but this is partly due to a change in the accounting system. However, in many regions there is a restoration of forests associated with a deep crisis in agriculture and the economy as a whole. But at the same time, timber stocks decreased by 1.2 billion m3, which indicates that the forests of Russia are “getting younger”, that is, the most valuable ones are being cut down - mature and productive forests, and restoration is carried out at the expense of low-value small-leaved young forests.
Russia's forest resources are considered among the richest in the world. The area of