A Quarter of All Russian Forests Could be Left to Burn – Some Regions in Siberia Underreporting Extent of Forest Fires for ‘Political Reasons’
By Olga Gertcyk
29 May 2016(Siberian Times) – A quarter of all Russian forests, 89% of stocks in Sakha Republic, could be left to burn, even though they are essential to fight global warming.
These vast tracts of forest have been labelled ‘distant and hard-to-reach territories’, and as such it is officially permitted not to extinguish forest fires if they do not constitute a threat to settlements or if a fire fighting operation is extremely expensive.
At the same time, there is official recognition that some regions in Siberia are underreporting the extent of forest fires for ‘political reasons’, an accusation long made by environmental campaigners.
Some 86% of forest in Sakha – also known as Yakutia, and the largest constituent of the Russian Federation – is deemed to fall into the category of ‘distant and hard-to-reach territories’, according to reports.
Some 219 million hectares – or 2.19 million square kilometres, a larger area than either Saudi Arabia or Greenland – is covered by the definition. This amounts to quarter of all forests in Russia, where trees – especially in Siberia – are seen as an essential brake on climate change.
A new decree in Sakha Republic says the emergency services may stop extinguishing fires in such territories if there is no threat to residential areas, or if costs are disproportionate. The move comes as the forest fire season is once more biting across Siberia.
On 26 May 2016, some about 129,000 hectares of forests, mainly in the Republic of Buryatia, and TransBaikal and Amur regions were on fire. Greenpeace Russia believes that officials and regional authorities intentionally announce figures underestimate the scale of forest fires.
On 26 May, some about 129,000 hectares of forests, mainly in the Republic of Buryatia, and TransBaikal and Amur regions were on fire. Pictures: Port Amur, Vkontakte
According to the environmental activists, open satellite sources indicated fires covering up to 3 million hectares of forests as of 23 May.
Rosleskhoz – the Federal Agency for Forestry, a federal executive body responsible for oversight of forestry issues – admitted that official figures from regions may be at odds with the actual area of raging fires. Among other reasons this could be ‘because of political factors’.
The agency promised to provide correct data about damage at the end of the [fire] season.
Nikolai Krotov, deputy head of Rosleskhoz, said: ‘We have concerns about differences in Amur region, Buryatia, Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk regions. We don’t rule out that there can be political factors, subjective factors, when information is submitted in a different way.’
Greenpeace has argued for information in real time, not at the end of the season, so fire-fighting resources can be switched between regions to be deployed in most needed areas.
Greenpeace has argued for information in real time, not at the end of the season, so fire-fighting resources can be switched between regions to be deployed in most needed areas. Pictures: Anton Klimov
[more]
Forests on fire: ‘no attempt will be made to extinguish 219 million hectares of burning trees’
Source: http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2016/05/a-quarter-of-all-russian-forests-could.html
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
even though they are essential to fight global warming. Are you people that stupid still believing in the GLOBAL WARMING SCAM?
That is our media, Putin does not buy in to it.
A fire this big would show up on satellite photos. Seems like you would show some satellite pictures to prove what you say is true…..meanwhile, Alberta, Canada, is still burning, and it is not mentioned on the news nor does anyone here at BIN write about it – seems you are all in on hiding information about all the muslims living at Fort McMurray with their huge Islamic center. What about that? anyone? anyone?
NEWS FLASH!!!!!
Um, only a century or so ago, we lacked the communications system that could inform us when there was a fire in a remote region of the Russian (or Canadian) boreal forest. Fires occur fairly frequently in these forests from lightning strikes. Throughout the millennia, these fires burned until rain or change of seasons or natural barriers (rivers, lakes, mountains) caused them to go out. Somehow life on Earth survived and the climate did not go into irreversible heating. But now that Global Warming, Anthropogenic Global Warming, and Climate Change have risen to the level of crises Threatening The Very Existence Of Life On Earth, wildfires in remote forests are suddenly extremely serious problems and the failure of a country to devote huge amounts of money and overwhelming armies of firefighters to fighting these fires is a SCANDAL!!!!!
If a fire started in a remote area of the Canadian boreal forest, the practice has been to assemble a firefighting team, fly it into an area near the fire, and then wait for rain to put out the fire ( I kid you not). The “fire fighting” was a public relations and local employment exercise. Only if a settlement was threatened did actual fire fighting break out.
The “green” movement and “tree huggers” have persuaded local governments that no tree or shrub should be cut down, and that our cities and neighbourhoods should be filled with trees and bushes. In our forests, fire suppression has been the main management tool, allowing massive amounts of decadent timber and undergrowth to accumulate, so that the task of fire suppression demands ever-greater resources. In spite of our fire-fighting services, there are regular outbreaks of wildfires that engulf neighbourhoods, as has happened in Fort MacMurray, and earlier in California, Australia, Kelowna BC, Slave River, eastern Washington each summer, etc., etc.
If Fort MacMurray had had cleared areas around its neighbourhoods instead of forests, the chances of avoiding its calamity would have been much greater. The European settlers who farmsteaded on the Canadian prairies quickly learned the necessity of plowed firebreaks around their homes and other buildings to prevent their loss from the frequent wildfires (usually started by lightning) that roared across the prairie. But the lesson has been forgotten now.