The results of a comprehensive survey of the planned Dvina-Pinega nature reserve were summed up. The experts confirmed the unique value of the intact forests.

Three expeditions to study the territory between the Northern Dvina and the Pinega rivers, where a regional landscape reserve is being created, were held in August-October 2018. Three groups of experts worked in the forest, composed of scientists-botanists, zoologists, forestry specialists from the Northern Research Institute of Forestry, WWF-Russia, Pinega reserve, SAF University, Saint Petersburg State Academy of Veterinary Medicine, Federal Research Center for Integrated Study of the Arctic of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Centre of Nature Management and Environment Protection, Roslesinforg, and other organizations. The work was carried out in the territory of Pinezhsky, Vinogradovsky and Verkhnetoemsky districts of Arkhangelsk Region.

One of the main findings of the researchers were fresh traces of a small herd of wild forest reindeer, listed in the Red Data Book of Arkhangelsk Region.

"This is a very important result, confirming that the Dvina-Pinega forest area is a habitat of the reindeer, which due to poaching and deforestation is almost on the verge of extinction in the region,” said Andrey Shchegolev, the Head of Arkhangelsk office, WWF-Russia Barents Ecoregion Programme. “According to our data, several groups of deer live in the forested land. This species is strictly confined to intact forests, and the existence of a local population requires a sufficiently large area of old-growth coniferous forests. It is intact forests that have the conditions and food resources necessary for deer in different seasons. In the region, there are very few such sites. The creation of the reserve will give the deer an additional chance of survival, as well as will help conserve other rare species of animals such as white-tailed eagle, osprey, and eagle owl."

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As Alexander Bogdanov, an expert from Northern Forestry Research Institue, claims, the surveyed forests belong to the category of the intact ones, as they have never been subject to logging. Some trees have reached the age of 450 years.

According to the experts, this area is not of great value for the forest industry, because the forests are old, there are many dead trees, and wetlands. However, from the point of view of the landscape value, importance of these forests to maintain environmental quality; to conserve the rivers sources that feed the main water arteries of the region, pristine salmon-spawning rivers, the area is simply priceless. The creation of the reserve will help protect the core of the forestland from logging and conserve it for traditional nature management, i.e. legal hunting and fishing, picking mushrooms and berries.

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All the data obtained this year will complement the materials of a comprehensive environmental survey necessary to assign the unique taiga the status of protected area.

WWF-Russia reminds that this April, a compromise was reached between the forest companies and the environmental organizations concerning the boundaries of the reserve. According to the plan of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the logging enterprises of Arkhangelsk Region, the reserve will be created early in 2019.

Headline photo: (c) Viktor Mamontov

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Anna Porokhova

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Andrey Shegolev

Head of Forest Program Office