War-torn Ukraine seeks forestry cooperation

At the conference with EUSBSR in Visby 30-31 October 2024, SNS and the Swedish Forest Agency arranged a joint workshop on forest cooperation with partners around the Baltic Sea and also Ukraine.
Text and photo: Mats Hannerz, SilvInformation
 
The acronym EUSBSR stands for EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. The main purpose of the collaboration is to connect the EU-members around the Baltic Sea, increase prosperity in the area and save the ecology and status of the sea.
Every year, EUSBSR arranges an Annual Forum, which this year was located in Visby on Gotland. Among the 600 delegates, there were also around 50 from Ukraine who were especially welcomed to the conference.
Ukraine also had a special place at the workshop organized by SNS and the Swedish Forest Agency. The purpose of the workshop was to find ways to increase macro-regional development in the bioeconomy, and specifically to find ways to increase cooperation between the Baltic Sea countries and Ukraine.
 
Mined forest

Maryna Bohush, State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine, told about how the war has affected the forest.

Maryna Bohush from the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine gave a poignant overview of the state of forestry in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion has greatly affected how the forest is and can be managed. Close to half a million hectares of the forest is mined and cannot be entered. One-seventh of all forest workers and officials are mobilized, and a large percentage of her colleagues in state forestry have died in the war.

Despite the war, the day-to-day work with forest inventory, plant cultivation and felling continues. Ukraine has come a long way in terms of digitization, and here they also have cooperation with other EU countries. A collaboration that they want to develop even more.
 
Share experiences in remote sensing

Iryna Matsiakh warned for the threats to forest health.

Daniel Thorell from the Swedish Forest Agency told about the project DigiFor 2023-2024, which was a collaboration between Sweden, Finland, Latvia and Ukraine. The project was about sharing good experiences in remote sensing and inventory. He pointed out that there are still challenges that need to be solved, e.g. how to track and follow individual trees from felling to industry.

 
Maksym Matsala, who works at SLU in Alnarp, showed how it has been possible to follow what has happened to the forest since the war started. Satellite images are used to review the condition, and among other things, 245,000 hectares have been destroyed by fire and drought in 2024 alone.
 
Iryna Matsiakh from SLU Skogsskadecenter gave an overview of all threats to the health of the forest. A good example of collaboration is the monitoring that takes place in the border area of ​​the distribution of the beetle emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis). This insect is spreading towards the north-west and is a major threat to Europe’s ash trees, if it gets a foothold.
 
Urgent need for cooperation

Round table discussions.

Maria Tunberg standing with microphone.

The workshop was opened by Anna Meisner Jensen, who talked about Nordic cooperation through SNS, and by Mats Hannerz, who gave some examples of how the Nordic countries stand out in the forest statistics.

Maria Tunberg moderated the workshop, which ended with round-table discussions on future collaborations around the bioeconomy, especially with a focus on Ukraine’s participation.
– This workshop has shown the urgent need Ukraine has for cooperation with other countries, she says.
– And also what other countries can gain from the development of forest research cooperation.
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