Over 10.000 hectares of forests were destroyed in the catastrophic wildfires that hit North Macedonia during this year. The situation was extremely serious during August, when the extremely bad combination of drought, a prolonged heatwave with temperatures of over 40 C and strong winds, caused the devastation of whole forests in the Maleshevo region, the hills surrounding Kochani and other locations in the country.
The material damages caused by the forest wildfires have reached the sum of 31 million EUR , but the main dangers on the local population are yet to come – dangers of erosion and landslides. On the other hand, for the country, these fires mean growing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and decreased forest fund.
But the fires are just one of the dangers on the forest fund. The Center for European Strategies – Eurothink state that illegal lodging is also a major problem. According to the data provided by the Global Forest Watch, starting from 2001 until today, Macedonia has lost 38, 600 hectares of forests which equals a decrease of 4,9% of the forests. The data provided by the State Statistical Office from 2010 until today state that the damages in the forests caused by illegal lodging are 245.118 метри кубни дрва.
“Declaratively, both the institutions and the citizens are expressing their dissatisfaction from the fires and the illegal lodging as another cause that is contributing to climate change,” said Dimitar Nikolovski, the Eurothink’s director for Meta.mk.
Still, in reality, the institutions obliged for the protection and affirmation of the forests’ values alarm and are active in the field, best to their capacities and in most cases, their capacities are small and insufficient in order to provide greater protection, concluded Nikolovski.
“One of the problems concerning the institutions is that the institutional cooperation on a local level and in the field is small and ineffective and often this context is burdened by daily political and financial motives,” said Nikolovski.
The publication “Ravaging of our future> Forms/Models of organized crime in the illegal lodging in North Macedonia” by EUROTHINK stressed that the capacities of the forest police in many aspects are small and scarce, starting from the number of employees and the bad working conditions. Apart from the elementary and technical assets, the forest police has neither drones nor efficient electronic systems for the prevention of illegal logging.
“The forest service which is integrated into PE National Forests have been facing with similar and often with even worst conditions than the Forest police, and the forest officers are those that are out in the field in the mountains and are first to face with the organized crime,” revealed the research conducted by EUROTHINK, that this year will be expanded with a new publication on this subject.
That the forest protection is below the satisfactory level, the info about the last conducted forest census was in 1979. In the official state documents, it is evidenced that the forests and the forest land in the country stretch over a space of 1,1 million hectares. There is a great diversity of species of trees but with low quality and minor annual growth.
This was stated as information in the “Third two-year report on climate change” by the Ministry of Environment where it is also stated that the country’s total wood reserves are evaluated to be approximately 70 million cubic meters of wood, and the total annual growth is 1,7 million cubic meters.
But precise information about how many areas with trees do we really have is of key importance so that in the future qualitative calculations about greenhouse gases can be made as well as the measure that should be taken in order to ease the effects of climate change.
In the last two-year report on climate change, it is stated that Forestry is the sector that mostly contributes to the absorption of greenhouse gases in the country. During the periods where there aren’t any forest fires and logging, the trees absorbed more than they emit greenhouse gases. But, during those years when the big forest fires are ravaging, the FOrestry sector is one of the biggest creators of hazardous gases that influence global warming.
Therefore, in the year 2000, when the fires have encompassed major areas under trees, the greenhouse emission climbed to a record high of 10,441,1 gigagrams of carbon dioxide equivalents. In these cases, forest fires have a much bigger negative influence on climate change even more than the problematic energy sector.
This is why the forestation of barren areas, preserving the forests and the adequate equipment for the forest police and the forest services including raising the awareness among the people about the protection of forests, are the key factors for the prevention of the rise of the average air temperature in the world.
Dimitar Nikolovski of EUROTHINK said that their research through interviews with experts and people is showing that there is no direct link between illegal logging and forest wildfires. The reason for this is the fact that if the trees were destroyed and were previously burnt, that will lower their value compared to assets of illegally cut wooden mass.
Still, EUROTHINK stressed that the illegal loggers are causing other major damages in the forests especially on the regeneration of trees.
“The forestation is made only for acicular trees. These trees regenerate by themselves. When these trees are cut by forest enterprises, they are cut in accordance with a certain standard – not from the root, but there are rules for cutting up to a certain height. One of the problems is that the illegal loggers are cutting the trees from their roots and are preventing their regeneration,” stressed Nikolovski.
The areas that were burned this summer are yet to be reforested
Meta.mk went out to see the location where the wildfires occurred. The citz of Kochani was in danger of being engulfed bone of these fires and it was only due to people’s composure and quick reaction that led to avoiding major material damages and deaths.
The irredeemable damages from the fires above Kochani can be seen even today. Major areas of burnt trees can be seen on location and are witnesses to the dreadful moments from the past summer. We spoke to residents of the houses that are located near the locations where the fires happened. The fire has arrived from Trkanski hill to their houses in a matter of 15 minutes. Over 200 people not only from Kochani but from Vinica and other populated areas were fighting with the fire.
“Both days it was difficult to breathe,” said our collocutor, who requested to be anonomious.
He said that the burnt forest above Kochani is planned to be cut which means that the location will be reforested completely. On the location of the burned areas, a park is planned to be built.
On the other hand, a month ago, PE National forests have started an emergency reforestation action that would repair the damages from the wildfires. Still, for the reforestation of the damaged areas, it would take a minimum of two years of work on part of the PE National Forests’ expert services, informed this enterprise after the wildfires.
Macedonia at COP 26 against the destruction of forests
At the UN’s Climate Change Conference (COP 26) that took place in Glasgow during the first half of November, over 100 world leaders agreed to put an end to deforestation, no later than by 2030. The major agreement for the prevention of the destruction of forests was also signed by North Macedonia.
Still, despite the declarative effort in Glasgow, in the forthcoming period, North Macedonia will have to present concrete numbers about planting new trees per year. Also, the preparation with personnel and new equipment for the forest police and the first service are concrete measures that can prevent any further destruction of forests. Finally, this country has to make a census of the national forest fun, so that we may have detailed information about the forest fund we have at our disposal.
Authors: Bojan Blaževski, Goše Nikolov
Photo credits: Goše Nikolov
