Hello from Ukraine! I have now been here for more than two months, but have only recently established any kind of reliable internet connection. So I've got a pretty big backlog of experiences to right about! I'm living in the Carpathians now, but my first Ukrainian post will be about a short trip I took to Polissie Zapovednik (Nature Reserve) in northern Ukraine.

My advisor Sergiy Zibtsev took me to meet the reserve because he is working on fire management issues there. The forests of the Polissie ("in the woods") region cover a big swathe of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Poland. It is a mixture of dry outwash sites and extensive swamps, with scots pine being the dominant species in both types. Silver birch is also quite common, and there is some Populus tremula. Quercus robur is present too, but site quality is so low in the Reserve that it only grows as a small midstory tree. The reserve was established to protect a complex of unique bog ecosystems, and the forests within it are generally very dry and unproductive pine sites. Picture widely spaced, slow-growing scots pine with a few scattered midstory oaks and a ground cover of blueberry. Also lots of scots pine plantations.

In 2007 there was a big fire here (550 hectares). Mortality in young stands and plantations was very high, while older pines in natural stands withstood the fire with minimal damage. The director of the reserve wants to start using prescribed fire to reduce fuel loading. His imperative is to protect peatland communities, which can be very badly damaged by creeping peat fires. He also wants to initiate prescribed burning in the neighboring forest management units and collective farms. Such coordination is not easy in Ukraine, and he is already working against very strong anti-fire feeling in the forestry establishment. 

Probably the most interesting aspect of the trip was the official response to the fires. They were regarded only as a disaster, even though fire is actually quite natural in Polissie and older pine forests are well adapted to it. Zapovedniks are strict nature reserves, but here we saw extensive salvaging of burnt stands, even ones that will easily survive the fire. Fire could actually help restore natural structural features here, but burnt stands are clearcut and replanted. We saw some areas that had very high fire mortality, which was followed by excellent natural regeneration of pine. But because the foresters must demonstrate that they did something in response to the fire, it is possible that some of this regen will be plowed under and nursery seedlings planted there instead! It is very important to show that burnt acres have been actively "reforested"...

Dr. Zibtsev is trying to convince the reserve managers to at least leave healthy residuals and fire snags during the salvage process, to help maintain some complex features in the next stand. He is also trying to identify stands that will survive the fires well and do not need to be salvaged.