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RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Fire Management in High Biodiversity Value Forests of Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion
GEF Project Brief
The World Bank
Europe and Central Asia Region
Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Sector Unit
Date: July 3, 2004 / Team Leader: Andrey V. KushlinSector Manager: Marjory-Anne Bromhead / Sector(s): Forestry (60%), Central govt. administration (20%), Sub-national govt. administration (20%)
Country Director: Kristalina I. Georgieva
Project ID: P068386 / Theme(s): Natural disaster mgmt. (P), Biodiversity (P)
Focal Area: B – Biodiversity
Project Financing Data
[ ] Loan [ ] Credit [X] GEF Grant [ ] Guarantee [ ] Other:Amount (US$ m):7.90
Financing Plan (US$ m): Source / Local / Foreign / Total
Government / 29.67 / 0.00 / 29.67
Global Environment – Associated IBRD Fund / 1.37 / 4.95 / 6.32
Global Environment Facility / 1.75 / 6.15 / 7.90
Bilateral (USAID) / 0.04 / 0.06 / 0.10
NGOs (World Wide Fund for Nature) / 0.10 / 0.04 / 0.14
Others / 0.01 / 0.00 / 0.01
Total: / 32.94 / 11.20 / 44.14
Recipient: Russian Federation
Responsible agency: Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation (with regional administrations of Khabarovsk Kray, Primorsky Kray, Jewish Autonomous Oblast)
Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia
Address: Pyatnitskaya 59/19, Moscow 123812, RussiaContact Person: Victor N. Sergeyenko, Deputy Chief, Dept. of Forest Protection, Federal Forestry Agency
Tel: (+7-095) 951-2689 Fax: (+7-095) 230-8530 Email:
Government of Khabarovsk Kray
Address: Karla Marksa 56, Khabarovsk 680000, RussiaContact Person: Alexander B. Levintal, Deputy Governor
Tel: (+7-4212) 32-76-17 Fax: (+7-4212) 32-87-56 Email:
Estimated Disbursements (Bank FY/US$ m):
FY / 2005 / 2006 / 2007 / 2008 / 2009
Annual / 0.4 / 2.0 / 2.6 / 2.1 / 0.8
Cumulative / 0.4 / 2.4 / 5.0 / 7.1 / 7.9
Project implementation period: 2005-2009 (5 years)
Expected effectiveness date: April 2005 Expected closing date: June 2009
A. Project Development Objective
1. Project Development Objective: (see Annex 1)
The objective of the proposed project is to strengthen conservation of the high biodiversity value forests of the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion (ASAE) of the Russian Far East through the improved forest fire management, reducing frequency, size and intensity of catastrophic fires in the areas of the global conservation importance. The project would develop and implement policies and practices for the integrated management, monitoring and prevention of forest fires within and outside of protected areas.
2. Key Performance Indicators: (see Annex 1)
Achievement of this objective will be measured by:
(a)establishment of an ecoregion-wide integrated forest fire management system to include high biodiversity value forests currently without proper fire management regime;
(b)increased effectiveness of fire management in high biodiversity value forests through strengthened regulatory framework and interdepartmental coordination, integrated ecosystem management, and increased capacities to address catastrophic fires and their consequences; and
(c)raised public awareness and support from the local population and communities to fire prevention and mitigation through promotion of community-based fire management and alternative land/ecosystem management programs.
B. Strategic Context
1. Sector-related Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) goal supported by the project: (see Annex 1)
Document number: 24127Date of latest CAS discussion: May 14, 2002
The project is in line with the current World Bank operational program. The project objective is consistent with the current CAS document for Russia (May 2002), which specifies further support to conservation and sustainable management of globally significant natural habitats and biological resources, and the overall strengthening of the national institutional framework for environmental and natural resources management, as areas for priority Bank intervention.
1a. Global Operational strategy/Program objective addressed by the project:
The Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion, in the south of the Russian Far East, is at a geographical crossroads. The area, which includes Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krays and Jewish Autonomous Oblast, covers an area of 567,000 km2 (which is larger than any Western European country or Japan), extending 1,200 km from 42 to 54 degrees North. The region escaped glaciation during the last ice age. This feature, combined with the varied topography, with altitudes rising to 2000 meters and a monsoon rainfall pattern unusual for such a northerly area, has led to a uniquely varied pattern of vegetation and made it a biological refugium of extraordinary diversity. Boreal, temperate and sub-tropical populations of plants and animals thrive together, comprising an unusual assemblage of forest ecosystems. The region has been classified by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as one of the “Global 200 Ecoregions”. It includes 23 forest different formations and subformations, 150 forest types, over 200 tree and shrub species, and overall – about 2,000 species of vascular plants and an unusually rich fauna; including about 20 species of amphibia and reptiles, over 250 species of birds, about 70 species of mammals. Flora and fauna elements of the East Siberian, Okhotsk-Kamchatka, Manchurian and Hindo-Malayan origins share the same habitat in the unique broadleaved-coniferous forests of this ecoregion. The region includes forest ecosystems that have been almost totally destroyed in the neighboring countries of China, Korea and Japan.
Table 1. Existing and Planned Protected Areas and Protection Forests in the Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion
Total Land Area / Strict Reserves (Zapovedniks) / Partial Reserves and Other PA's / Areas of TraditionalLand Use / Planned Protected Areas / Protection (1st Group) Forests
000 ha / 000 ha / % / 000 ha / % / 000 ha / % / 000 ha / % / 000 ha / %
Khabarovsk Kray / 36,530.0 / 839.4 / 2.3 / 3,333.1 / 9.1 / 11,385.8 / 31.2 / 7,800.0 / 21.4 / 4,674.9 / 12.8
Primorsky Kray / 16,590.0 / 684.3 / 4.1 / 1,397.8 / 8.4 / 407.0 / 2.5 / 2,900.0 / 17.5 / 3,115.2 / 18.8
Jewish AO / 3,620.0 / 91.8 / 2.5 / 383.5 / 10.6 / 0.0 / 0.0 / 130.0 / 3.6 / 377.6 / 10.4
Ecoregion Total / 56,740.0 / 1,615.5 / 2.8 / 5,114.4 / 9.0 / 11,792.8 / 20.8 / 10,830.0 / 19.1 / 8,167.7 / 14.4
The project follows the GEF Strategic Guidelines and would address GEF Operational Program No. 3 – Forest Ecosystems. It addresses the Program’s objectives of (i) promoting conservation and protection of primary and old growth and ecologically mature secondary forest ecosystems in areas at risk, and (ii) ensuring the sustainable use of biodiversity by combining production, socio-economic and biodiversity goals. Most project activities would also be relevant under the GEF Operational Program No. 12 – Integrated Ecosystem Management – by promoting multiple focal area benefits of sustainable natural resource management (removing threats to biodiversity from human-induced fire regimes and promoting carbon sequestration). Other features of global or transboundary significance are summarized below:
(1)The region includes the north-western Pacific. Mountains include the Sikhote-Alin, Bureya and Dzhugdzhur Ranges. These highlands are the source of the Amur and Lena River systems which are among the world's largest, with average annual fresh water flow of 834 km3. They sustain large populations of river and marine migrating fish species, including Pacific salmon species. The viability of river fishing resources is maintained by the watershed forests. Forest fires bring about erosion and soil degradation on watersheds, causing silting of creeks and streams and altering their temperature regimes.
(2)The region borders China, Korea and Japan, whose forest cover has been largely depleted; its forests affect the air above North-Eastern Asia. Even most conservative estimates show that a carbon sequestration by the forests is 1.5-2 times higher than their emissions. Forest fires disrupt this positive net carbon balance. In 1998, a year of very severe fire in the Russian Far East, carbon emissions totaled 77 million tons in Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krays. In years of heavy fires, there are months of persistent smoke in the territory, which contribute to a higher incidence of respiratory diseases. During the 1998 fires, some pulmonary patients had to be evacuated from towns in the region.
(3) Over twenty 'small-in-numbers' indigenous peoples of the North abide in the region. The forest is a basis for their traditional nature resource use, maintenance and continuity of their mode of life. Forest fires destroy valuable areas on territories of their traditional nature resource use (11.8 million ha), depriving these peoples of an opportunity to maintain their mode of life, based on hunting and wild plant gathering.
(4)A substantial share of the forests is still composed of virgin or, at least, undisturbed forests. Protected areas comprise nearly 7% of the region's area, and forests managed for protection purposes (so called 1st Group Forests) an additional 14%. There are proposals to increase designated protected areas further (see Table 1), and to establish ecological corridors for more effective ecosystems and habitat conservation. Anthropogenically caused forest fires damage the integrity of these areas.
The project addresses GEF strategic priorities for biodiversity conservation through: (i) mainstreaming biodiversity in production landscapes and sectors, (ii) catalyzing sustainability of protected areas, and (iii) generating and disseminating best practices for addressing current and emerging biodiversity issues. Its proposed activities would directly support innovative practical approaches called for by the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP-7) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in its Decisions VII/1 “Forest Biological Diversity”, VII/11 “Ecosystem Approach”, and VII/28 “Protected Areas”.
The GEF grant would finance costs of activities required to achieve global conservation benefits, which would be incremental to the baseline national program undertaken by the Government with support from the World Bank’s on-going Russia Sustainable Forestry Pilot Project and from the other donors (see Annex “ Incremental Cost Analysis”).
2. Main sector issues and Government strategy:
Background
The ecoregion’s extraordinary biological diversity is under threat due to the recent increases in the human population and its unsustainable uses of the forest landscape, one being the leading causative agent of most wildfires. Forest fires have tripled in frequency in the last half-century, and have increased in intensity as well.
Much of the area is remote and difficult to access. Although about 7% is protected from any intensive uses such as forest operations (about 1/3 is protected if indigenous use areas are included), most of the forest has been harvested at one time or another, changing the characteristics of the fuels and propensity for wildfires. Biodiversity uses and requires the entire landscape, and management that separates the protected areas from the forest matrix in which they are embedded, serves to isolate protected areas as fragments which inevitably become vulnerable in the absence of a landscape-level management approach – the same approach required to effectively deal with catastrophic fires of tens of thousands of hectares.
Characterization of Regional and Project Site Related Biological Diversity.
Defining the global significance of the biological diversity of the ASAE is not extraordinarily difficult given the attention to cataloging nature in the regional zapovedniks since the 1930’s, and also due to issues with its’ “charismatic megafauna” (including the endangered Siberian tiger and Far Eastern leopard) which have brought significant international attention and resources, leading to accumulating research results. For example, the two large zapovedniks in the middle of the area have been documenting biodiversity and serving as research sites since 1932 (Ussuriysky in southern Primorsky Kray), and 1935 (Sikhote-Alinsky in mid Primorsky Kray). Unfortunately, much of the data have not been summarized or analyzed, and the remoteness of the areas have impeded significant scientific study that embraces broadly representative taxa and processes. Hence, the summary of existing published or reported data below is spotty, and attaching confidence in the numbers is not possible. Nevertheless, the various reports are consistent with regard to the uniqueness and richness of the region, a determination accepted here and subjectively borne out in field visits.
As an example of the diversity found in the ASAE, the Ussuri River is the largest watershed within the Sikhote-Alin ecoregion and central to the disposition of key project sites. The Ussuri drains most of the Sikhote-Alin, and is fed by the Khor and large river systems to the south including the Bikin and the watershed of the Sikhote-Alin zapovednik itself. The Ussuri watershed occupies 26.2 million hectares (17% in Khabarovsk Kray, 51% in Primorski Kray, and 1/3 in China), defines a portion of the Sino-Russian border, and flows north into the Amur River – an area larger than the United Kingdom. It is a unique region of intermingled boreal and southern hardwood forest ecosystems, reflected in its being the only place where tigers and brown bears co-occur. It houses 9 conifer and 40 hardwood tree species. The Korean pine (a regional endemic) forests have been selectively high-graded (genetically superior “plus” trees – the largest and straightest, are cut) by logging. They are threatened in spite of a logging ban, and the indigenous Udege people have been granted a pine nut extraction zone for exclusive traditional harvest. The fish and wildlife constitute 1/3 of all red book species in Russia including, in addition to the tiger and leopard, the little known long-legged lungless salamander, soft-shelled turtles, several snake species, and a number of birds and mammals. Regional or locally endemic Pleistocene or even Tertiary relicts include several maples, an alder and the so-called funeral pine. Cultivation of the watershed greatly increased after the cultural revolution in China, and stabilized in the 1980’s at about 22% of the area. Unsustainable logging has been a factor in conversion of forests for over 100 years.
The threats are clear. Unsustainable forms of logging is the main agent of forest conversion, affecting more land than either fire or agricultural conversion. In fact, the forest is not generally lost through such high grading, but the effort leads to increased fuels, initial road access, secondary succession of subclimax species, and informal uses such as commercial bear and tiger poaching, or illegal hunting of game. Many areas visibly reflect the initial entry for large “cedar” (Korean pine) whose massive stumps indicate what the forest must have once looked like. The initial access for logging has cascading effects. Research in temperate forests elsewhere indicate about half of the red deer and most bear disappear at the density of roads now found in the Ussuri watershed. At about 6 km/km², the deer nearly disappear. These are hunting effects - initially facilitated by roads for timber or other uses, with direct impact on tiger, for whom the deer are the main prey item.
Clearly then, the analysis indicates a need to harmonize commercial forest harvest and the maintenance of native biological diversity – one focus of this project. Also, some additions will be needed as corridors and protected areas to fill the existing gaps in known biodiversity protection, as well as to accommodate the requirements of wide-ranging species such as the tiger metapopulation, the brown bear, and anadromous fish like salmon. For example, the mid-Ussuri of the Sikhote-Alin watershed is protected as are portions of the Khor toward Khabarovsk. The Bikin is the large watershed in the middle, tying the other two together. The Bikin not included in the proposed model areas of this project because it does not have the diversity of uses and users necessary for implementation of activities at model-area level. Nevertheless, this watershed would be an important part of ecoregion-wide project activities, such as zoning and monitoring, as the unprotected middle reaches of the Bikin system exhibit very high biological diversity, including Siberian tiger and many characteristic species of the Ussuri forests such as Mandarin duck, scaly-sided Merganser, Blakiston’s fish owl, black stork, red-crowned crane, hooded crane, the full suite of forest mustelids such as sable and marten, wild ungulates such as red deer, and predators such as Himalayan black bear, brown bear, etc. It is remarkable in being what one scientist described as the largest intact primary forest left in the Far East. However, it does house considerable resources such as timber, gold, silver, opal, and marble, and roads are being constructed.
Such landscape-level planning and amendments to the regional protected area system are the subject of a proposed GEF project addressing an “Econet” of areas and building upon the current GEF mid-size protected areas grant.
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Table 2. Biodiversity Values for Amur-Sikhote-Alin Ecoregion and Its Model Areas
Site / Area/character / Threats / Biodiversity valueEntire Ecoregion
Amur-Sikhote
-Alin / - 567,400 km²/32% protected area/14% first-group forest
- 470-1170mm precipitation
- 90-200 days growing season / - 1.8-4 mil ha 1998 burn Khabarovsk Kray (KK), 1998), substantial in Jewish AO (JAO), none in Primorsky Kray (PK)
Prot Areas burn more than forests
Converted or logged 2/3 of hi biodiv forest / - 20 indigenous groups
- high biodi forest of 450-800 spp vascular plants (of 2000 in whole region) = Korean pine, black spruce /broadleaf forest= 127,800 ha (8.2%) JAO, 1,596,800 ha (14%) PK, 360,900 ha (1.4%) KK with 2.9% of ecoregion hi BD forests modified (1.1 mil ha) but reclaimable.
- unique ecological relationships and processes e.g. potentially sympatric wolf-tiger impact on prey diversity
Model Area 1
JAO forests (all) / 2.2 mil ha (100% of JAO forests) / -All high biodi forest in 2nd/3rd group forests for harvesting-Higher than average fire rates/yr / Same as above
Model Area 2
South Primorski / 0.1 mil ha (0.8% of PK forests)1 Zapovednik, 2 Zakazniks, 1 leskhoz / - Fires set every yr – loss of forest and encroachment largely for sika deer farms’ grazing
- Heavy poaching
- Dense human population/ development increasing / Very high number of declining endemics – Far Eastern leopard, Siberian tiger, 4 endangered snakes, poorly known long-legged salamander, etc. Unique forest of elm, oak, black fir, Korean pine.
Model Area 3
Central Sikhote-Alin / 1.8 mil ha (13.7%) of PK forests1 Zapovednik, 1 Zakaznik, 2 National Parks, 2 lezkhoz’s / Logging roads = access for poaching. Heavy poaching – 10 yrs ago, tiger sold for US$ 1100, black bear gall bladder for $110, 1 gram of ginseng $6. Sable $56, marten $28, squirrel $4 are legal. / From here north through the Bikin to the Khor of KK is the area of ecoclinal northern boreal and southern Manchurian flora and fauna – a unique mix. Locally endemic tertiary relicts like the monotypic shrub Microbiota and herbaceous medicinal saxifrage (Berginia) and a number of others. Example of faunal diversity in ungulates – 7 spp including disjunct rare goral subspecies.
Model Area 4
Khor-Khekhtsir(So KK) / 3.3 mil ha (13.2%) of KK forest
1 Zapovednik, 3 leskhoz’s / High annual fire rate
Poaching as above for Sikhote-Alin / Same as above
Model Area 5
Komsolmosk (Central KK) / 2.0 mil ha (8%) of KK forests1 Zapovednik, 1 Zakaznik, 3 leskhozes / High annual fire rate / Similar to above with declining Oriental realm biota (has tiger)
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