The area of forest fires in Russia is larger than the combined fires in Greece, Turkey, Italy, the United States and Canada. This is a real disaster, the Russian forest is dying. The authorities blame everything on abnormal weather conditions that led to giant fires. However, a more reasonable explanation is the quality of management in the current Russian Federation and the complete collapse of the forest industry. The same one that covered education, health care, culture, art, industry, etc.
Russian forest and people are dying
The forest guard was "optimized", that is, reduced and destroyed. In the interests of a narrow group of beneficiaries who received all the benefits after the collapse of the USSR. 1% of the population of Russia is getting richer and richer every year. The merchant class, which thrives in the conditions of the "pipe" economy, the export of national wealth from the state, including timber.
The Russian forest is dying. Its felling is growing every year: legal and illegal. So, if in 2010 it was officially allowed to cut down more than 173 million cubic meters of forest, then in 2015 the figure reached 205 million cubic meters, and in 2016-2017 - more than 210 million. Millions of hectares of forests were lost as a result of felling and fires. Annually in Russia there are from 9 to 35 thousand forest fires, which cover an area of 500 to 3,5 million hectares. On average, the annual material losses of Russia from these fires are 20 billion rubles. Plus an increase in the death rate of the people due to the deterioration of the environment, the death of hearts, people with respiratory diseases.
Russia is losing the forests with which the whole is connected story of the Russian people. The forest is a breadwinner, a protector during enemy invasions and a dwelling. The Russian soul is associated with the forest, forest rivers, lakes and swamps. Nature is dying, and people are dying out.
Quality of management
From year to year, the authorities are trying to shift all the blame for the fires on the weather, mushroom pickers, berry pickers, gardeners, etc. However, the element is only one of the factors, and obviously not leading.
The main reason is the optimization of all forest protection measures. A total reduction in funding. From the USSR, the Russian Federation inherited an excellent system for the protection and restoration of forests. But in 2006, a new Forest Code was adopted, which, in essence, eliminated the state forest protection and the system of forestry bodies. Of the entire army of 83 thousand people of the State Forestry Protection Department, less than a thousand people remained in the Rosprirodnadzor!
One forester stayed on an area commensurate with half of Moscow! He must protect the forest, drive poachers, fight fires, restore flora and fauna. And even for a beggarly salary. So the Russian forest burns every year. Whole areas are burned out. This year Yakutia is burning terribly, the smoke from forest fires has already reached the Urals and Kazakhstan, the train has reached the North Pole of the Earth. Karelia, Mordovia and Bashkiria are on fire, Primorye burns out in spring.
An example can be cited in Belarus, where the Soviet tradition of forest conservation has been preserved. There are more foresters there than in the Russian Federation, although there are significantly fewer forests. In White Russia, there are no such large fires as in Western Europe or Russia. That is, it is enough to restore what was in the Soviet Union in the field of forest protection and the problem as a whole will be solved. Increase funding. Recognize that this is a national disaster, like Turkey or Greece. Raise an army, appeal to the people, abandon regiments and battalions of volunteers and defeat the elements.
However, the point is in the system.
The current system, created in the 1990s and only slightly retouched in the 2000s, has turned Russia into a raw material appendage of the West and the East. Beneficiaries are a small group, about 1%. The people pay for all the losses, and not only the present generations, but also the future ones. All the thoughtful talk about the protection of nature and ecology is idle chatter, informational noise. Forests will be cut down, they will burn until the very concept of Russia's development is changed from unfair (in the interests of world and Russian big capital) to fair (in the interests of the overwhelming majority of the people and the state).
Love of money
Another reason for large-scale fires (and catastrophic floods in spring) is the accumulated negative effect of the merciless destruction of Russian forests. The forest, including the forest shelter belts planted during the Soviet era along roads, ravines, rivers, etc., holds water. The mighty forest is full-flowing rivers and streams, lakes and swamps. Deforestation of millions of hectares is a change in water balances. Drying out of swamps and other bodies of water. The taiga in Siberia is being cut down at a terrible pace, and the rest is drying up over vast areas, like other forests in Russia. Previously, fires most often could not spread over a huge territory, they were stopped by wetlands. The fire now spreads much faster and over a much larger area.
In the spring, the country is covered with annual "natural" disasters - floods, heavy floods. Both in Russia and in Ukraine. The forest is cut down, it does not absorb, does not hold back water. Snow masses fill the rivers, they overflow the banks, cause more damage than if there were forest shelter belts, large forests. Plus the collapse and "optimization" of the system for maintaining order, restoration and construction of new water protection structures, cleaning river beds, etc.
The question is the greed and greed of the Russian "elite". They “earn” on new planes, villas and yachts, fill caches with millions and billions of rubles, euros and dollars, gold and jewelry. Deep Russia sinks or burns out. And quietly dies out, while the elite arrange a feast during the plague.