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

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