|
Soviet Union [USSR] Forestry
With a third of the world's forested area, the Soviet Union has
long led all countries in the production of logs and sawn timber.
Although Siberia and the Soviet Far East hold 75 percent of the
country's total reserves, they accounted for only about 35 percent
of timber output in the mid-1980s. The forests of the northern
European part of the Russian Republic have supplied timber products
to the major population centers for centuries, and the timber
industry of the region is better organized and more efficient than
that east of the Urals. In addition, the European pine and fir
forests grow in denser stands and yield a generally superior
product than the vast forests of the east, where the less desirable
larch predominates. With the construction of some of the world's
largest wood-processing centers in eastern Siberia and the Soviet
Far East, and with the opening of the Baykal-Amur Main Line in
1989, the timber industry of the eastern regions was greatly
advanced
(see Soviet Union USSR - The Baykal-Amur Main Line
, ch. 14).
The Soviet timber industry, which in 1986 employed roughly
454,000 workers, has had a long history of low productivity and
excessive waste. Because of inadequate processing capacity, output
of wood pulp, newsprint, paper, cardboard, plywood, and other wood
products was scandalously low, considering the size of the Soviet
Union's timber resources and its perennial position as the world
leader in roundwood and sawed timber production. By the mid-1980s,
the country appeared to have made substantial progress in achieving
greater balance in its wood products mix. In 1986, for example, the
production of pulp (9 million tons) was nearly four times the 1960
output (2.3 million tons), paper production (6.2 million tons) was
almost three times higher, and cardboard output (4.6 million tons)
was roughly five times the 1960 level. Nevertheless, in 1986 the
Soviet Union ranked only fourth in world paper and cardboard
production, with only one-sixth the output of either the United
States or Japan. A high percentage of the roundwood harvest was
used in the form of unprocessed logs and firewood, which remained
an important fuel in the countryside.
In addition to their wood products, the north European,
Siberian, and Far Eastern forests are important for their animal
resources. Fur exports have long been an important source of
hard currency (see Glossary). Although trapping continued to be widely
practiced in the 1980s, fur farming, set up soon after the
Bolshevik Revolution, accounted for most of the country's
production of mink, sable, fox, and other fine furs.
One of the significant accomplishments of Soviet forestry has
been the successful effort to restore and maintain production
through reforestation of areas where overfelling had occurred. In
1986 alone, restoration work on 2.2 million hectares was completed,
which included planting trees on 986,000 hectares. In the same
year, nearly 1.7 million hectares of trees that had been planted as
seedlings reached commercial maturity. In addition, some 109,000
hectares of shelterbelts were planted along gullies, ravines, sand
dunes, and pastureland. This policy of conservation, in place for
several decades, helped fight wind erosion and preserved soil
moisture.
Data as of May 1989
|
