Forests and Forestry in Ukraine

Short Information about Ukraine and Forests.

Country Area	603,700 sq.km 233,090 sq.mi
Population	49.1 million (mid-2001)
Population Density	81.3 per sq.km
Forest Area	93,995 sq.km 36,291 sq.mi (15.6% of country area)
Climate:
Temperature	min -36-(-42) degrees Celsius (-32.9-(-43.6) degrees Fahrenheit)
	max 38-41 degrees Celsius ((100.4-105.8) degrees Fahrenheit)
Humidity	75%
Precipitation annual	500 mm (20")

Nature Reserves in Ukraine

Forestry Institutions in Ukraine

Forest Management

Most of the forests in Ukraine (7175 thousand hectares or about 70%) are managed by the Ukrainian State Committee of Forestry (USCF) that is part of the Ukrainian Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.
The official webpage of the USCF can be found at this address: http://www.dklg.kiev.ua

For the management purposes, federal forests are divided into 2 groups.

1. Forest land area in the first group is 3412.6 thousand hectares including 2850.2 thousand hectares of forest covered land. The first group of forests includes green belts around cities and industrial centers (37.6%), riparian areas (11.4%), soil erosion control forests and windbreaks (30.4%), forest belts along roads and railroads (6.9%), resort forests, nature preserves and other forests.

2. Limited timber harvest is allowed in the forests of the second forest group. They cover the area of 3692.2 thousand hectares including 3301.2 thousand hectares with forest cover. (from Gensiruk, 1992).

Forest Monitoring

Ukrainian national forest monitoring system is organized, performed and guided by the scientific organizations of
Ukrainian State Committee of Forestry (USCF).

General supervision is provided by the Scientific and Information Department of the USCF.

The Laboratory of Forest Monitoring and Radioecology at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Forestry and Forest Melioration (URIFFM) is the main forest monitoring implementation center in Ukraine.

The monitoring network covers main forest regions of the country and represents different geographical zones. It consists of 330 plots in 18 administrative regions of Ukraine and Autonomous Republic Crimea.

Read about the current state of the Ukrainian National Forest Monitoring Program.

	Major Forest Species in Ukraine

View the full table used for the construction of this graph.

English Name	Scientific Name	Ukrainian Name
Pine	mostly Pinus sylvestris	Sosna
Spruce	mostly Picea abies	Yalyna evropeiska (smereka)
Fir	mostly Abies alba	Yalytsya
Oak	mostly Quercus robur	Doob
Beech	Fagus sylvatica	Book
Hornbeam	Carpinus betulus	Grab
Ash	Fraxinus excelsior	Yasen
White Locust	Robinia pseudoacacia	Akatsiya
Birch	Betula pendula	Bereza
Alder	Alnus incana and A. rubra	Vil'kha

On this page you can view some maps on forests in Ukraine constructed by Maksym Polyakov.

Percent forest cover.

The list of other maps:
1. Percent of forest land by administrative region.
2. Percentage of forests where final felling is not allowed.
3. Mean standing volume in cubic meters per hectare of forest land.
4. Mean age of forest stands (years).

Questions? Email Maksym Polyakov at polyama@auburn.edu

or Olga Zyrina at olga.zyrina@efi.fi. You can also read about Olga Zyrina at Home Page.

This webpage was created in July 1998 and being constantly updated.

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