러시아ㆍ유라시아

This report has been drawn up within the study “Assessing the current losses and improving the economic analysis of the costs of the on-going climate related catastrophic forestry events based on international experience” funded by The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). This report was largely encouraged by the need to support the forest sector of Belarus to recover from the forestry catastrophic event of 2016 and to increase the resilience of Belarusian forests to future wind blows and other adverse weather effects. The goal of the study was to improve economic assessment of the impact of catastrophic weather events on Belarusian forests. The study was carried out based on analysis of available research from the countries that have considerably advanced in this area, and were developed with regard to the practices existing in the forest sector of the Republic of Belarus. The work involved meetings with the authorities and professionals of the Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Belarus, visits to forestry enterprise with relevant study of methods for economic assessment of costs and the recovery operations after natural disasters.In Belarus as well as in Europe there is a tendency towards the increasing number and intensity of natural disasters in forests. Therefore, the damage incurred by the adverse weather effects is also increasing.The emergency meeting of July 14, 2016 in the Ministry of Forestry came to a decision to mobilize all the forestry enterprises and other organizations of various ownership forms in order to eliminate the windblow damage in the most affected areas and to prevent degradation of the timber quality. It was decided to involve multifunction machinery to ensure maximum labour safety during the recovery operations. Since the first days after the windblow more than 500 workers were involved in the inspection of damaged forest stands in the forestry enterprises of the Minsk region. Scaled-up estimation of the scope of damaged forested areas was done by aerial survey and air drones. Final update was done during allocation of sites for cutting operations by forestry enterprises specialists.