Belarusian Polish Forest Mapping Belarusian Polish Forest Mapping

Belarusian-Polish Forest Mapping project
dense network. Many protected areas are still subject to human interference and environmentally
harmful management such as removal of decaying wood, fencing, and monocultural planting.
Poland and Belarus, where the most valuable primeval lowland forest in Europe (Biaowiea)
is located, play a special role in forest biodiversity conservation on our continent. Thanks to its
location at the centre of Europe, Poland includes a variety of forest types characteristic of the
temperate zone: from suboceanic pine forests, oak-hornbeam forests and beech forests, to
subcontinental oak-hornbeam forests, sub-boreal spruce forests and montane beech forests. Each
of these forest types is represented by well-preserved BIFs, where the characteristic species have
survived. Belarus no longer harbours much pristine old-growth forest, but there are a high
number of very old semi-natural forests with minimal human influence, and rare flood-meadow
broadleaved forests. Some of the surviving forest-bog ecosystems have no remaining equivalent
further West in Europe.
In river valleys, natural and semi-natural flood-plain forests are still present, acting as refuges for
many bird species. Extensive forests in the Carpathians in North and East Poland, and in North
and South Polesie in Belarus provide shelter for large predators and ensure ecological continuity
with other woodlands of Eastern Europe.
Like in many other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the transformation to a market
economy in Poland and Belarus has resulted in intensified timber extraction. At the same time,
forest management should have become more environmentally friendly, e.g. as a result of the
countries’ participation in the process of the Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests
in Europe. In this conflicting situation, the information on the distribution of Biologically
Important Forests should become a priority among the forest conservation efforts in Europe.
2. Belarusian-Polish Forest Mapping project methodology
2.1. Project organization
The Belarusian-Polish Forest Mapping project was coordinated by the BirdLife Partners of
Poland and Belarus: the Polish Society for Protection of Birds (Ogólnopolskie Towarzystwo
Ochrony Ptaków, OTOP) and APB-BirdLife Belarus (Akhova Ptushak Batskautschyny, APB).
In Belarus the project was carried out as a component of the UNDP Minsk office project
“Renaturalization and Sustainable Management of Peatlands in Belarus to Land Degradation,
Ensure Conservation of Globally Valuable Biodiversity and Mitigate Climate Change”. Both
modules of the project (Belarusian and Polish) were carried out by National Project Officers, and
supervised by a coordinator. The work was overseen by a Steering Committee, which included
representatives of both participating BirdLife Partners and of the BirdLife European Forest Task
Force. Methodological aspects of the project (e.g. defining and interpretation of criteria of
selecting BIFs) were determined by independent experts from both countries. The project was
financially supported by the Aage V. Jensen Charity Foundation, which is gratefully
acknowledged.
2.2. Material and methods
The database and maps of distribution of BIFs are based on the available sources of information,
mainly forestry records and digital maps obtained from the State Forests Holding (Poland) and
Forest Inventory Organization “Belgosles” (Belarus), supplemented by other spatial databases
and descriptive information (e.g. on the NATURA 2000 network, protected areas, and location
of protected species). Forest stands are classified as BIFs on the basis of specified criteria; each
forest site selected as biologically important meets at least one criterion.
The BIF criteria originally elaborated for the Baltic States were adapted to Polish and Belarusian
conditions at a workshop in April 2005, at which were present the following specialists:
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