Transformation of Forests to Close-to-Nature Forest Management in Ukraine: Nature-based silvicultural and fire management methods for increasing the resilience of pine stands to drought and wildfire
Authors: Zibtsev Sergiy , Georg Goldammer Johann , Soshenskii Olexandr , Gumeniuk Vasyl 
Published: March 2022

&lt;p&gt;Scots pine forests that make up 33% of the total forest area of Ukraine (9,4 million ha) that&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;are represented mostly by single species and planted stands, have low resilience to climate&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;change, fires and insects. More than 180 000 ha of pine forests were burned within 5 fire&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;episodes in northern and south-eastern regions of the country during extremely dry fire&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;season of 2020. In Luhansk oblast 16 civilians died, 54 were injured, 22 villages and hundreds&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;of houses were burned or damaged because of July and October 2020 fires. Climate change&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;uncertainties and numerous ignition sources in the landscapes require development and&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;implementation of long-term strategy towards building fire resilient landscapes and fire&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;resilient communities.&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;National Strategy of Integrated Landscape Fire Management in Ukraine was developed by&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;joint research team of the Regional Eastern Europe Fire Monitoring Europe and the Global&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Fire Monitoring Center for defining approaches and stakeholders as well as institutional&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;arrangement of fire resilient landscape and community concept implementation. The&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Strategy was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resource&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Management of Ukraine and publicly discussed.&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Silvicultural intervention and fuel treatment methods were tested experimentally in pine&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;forests of Ukraine within implementation of the RESILPINE project supported by the German&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL) / German Federal Agency for Agriculture&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;and Food (BLE). In particular, fire resilient forest edges on territories with high ignition&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;probability near agricultural fields and lowlands were established via planting birch, apple&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;tree, pear, lime tree in Boyarka Forest Experimental Station, Osterskii Military Forestry and&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Teteriv Forestry Enterprise. Formation of open fire resilient structure in 60-year-old pine&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;forests via heavy thinning (40%) of overcrowded stands and prescribed burning of ground fuel&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;on southern and south-eastern vicinity of villages Kudriashivka and Varvarivka of Luhansk&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Oblast that were threatened by fires in 2020. Oblasts were justified and prepared for spring&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;2022. Preliminary recommendations for state forest enterprises on increasing fire resilience&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;of pine forests were presented and approved by scientific-technical council of the State&amp;#160;&lt;br&gt;Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine.&lt;/p&gt;