0899-B3

Forest Conservation on the Scale of Human Values: Russia case

Victor Teplyakov ¹

Abstract

The paper discusses forest conservation in Russia through examining some historical, cultural, social and economical issues. Before 1970-th social surveys reflected that most of the World's population did not think much about ecology. Among human values there were listed health, career, family, peace in the world, and etc. These are still values of nowadays, and the Earth Summits displayed that people's concerns about environmental safety, water, air and forests preservation for future generation grew up dramatically over last decades, and the evolution of people's attitude towards environment is linked to the economical sustainability and acceptance of nature conservation goals. That is true in case of developed countries and is not so obvious for countries with economy in transition like Russia. For example, a number of NGOs try to raise international awareness on the status of remained virgin and relatively undisturbed forests in Russia. But these concerns are far behind everyday needs of common people even in forest areas, and forest conservation is not incorporated into their personal human values. At the same time, people minding is led not only by physiological instincts and economical situation in the country, but also rooted in Russian history and culture.

Introduction

What is the main tendency in human values system development? The answer is almost obvious - ecology, and Rio-de Janeiro Earth Summit shown this in 1992 and follow up Summits in New York (1997) and Johannesburg (2002). Environmental issues appeared decades ago, but the understanding of danger came only in the middle of last century. Mankind has realized that the consumerism towards nature is not the right way.

The UN Commission (1987), led by Gro Harlem Brundtland, presented a report "Our Common Future" on the environment and development that gave a black picture of environmental situation in the world. The Report has shown that every year some 11 million hectares of forests are destroyed and some 6 million hectares of productive lands are under desertification. Many species are endangered, fossil fuel burning and other industrial gases emission could lead to global warming, acid rains kill forests, etc. Environmental movement supported by mass media has awakened public concerns for nature conservation. Due to ecological values forming, people-to-nature relationship has transformed from intuitive and mostly affective, to individually comprehensive and consciousness. This transformation led to the change in people's mentality and environmental behavior, which became more target-oriented, sustainable and negative to those who destroy the nature.

In modern society, spiritual regulators of social life have different forms, such as values, ideals, social norms, behavior code, motivation, etc. Some create a strategy of individual's acts, the others regulate this strategy and determine human's behavior. These phenomena of spiritual life create a hierarchy system, the top of which belongs to an orientation on human values.

Fridrich Engels said that at the beginning of the history food, cloths and home were the basic human needs. He pointed out the vital human values that forest provided to people. The history of mankind is closely linked with forest.

Human values

It is very difficult to make a classification of human values, although one can comprise several groups, such as economical, ethical, political and others. In a specific culture, human values cannot be separated from one to another because they are a holistic system of values. But all systems have one basis - fundamental level of values -, which creates a unique society. Ethic values are fundamental values, which penetrate all human values in modern society. Among a wide set of values, there are several clusters - vital (life, health, food, security), social (freedom, welfare, social equality, justice), aesthetic (beauty, stile, harmony), economical (effectiveness, profitability) and other values. As we could see, human values derived from everyday life and human needs. It is not a task of this paper to give a classification of human values. The paper aims to give a brief insight of the forest conservation issues in Russia in relation with global or fundamental human values.

Before 1970-ies social surveys reflected that most of the World's population did not think much about ecology. Health, career, family, peace in the world, and etc. were listed among human values. For example, the research conducted in the USSR and the USA (Samoreguliatsia..., 1979) shown that dominant values differed except for the peace keeping between the nations that was ranged as first priority (see the table below).

For Russia, this is true even now with some variances. In the fall 2002, seventy male students of the age 17-20, coming from different parts of Russia and studying in Moscow were involved in the micro-survey on priority of human (vital, social and environmental) values and forest values. They ranked a number of human values from 1 to 15 that were clustered in three groups - high (1-5), medium (6-10) and low (11-15) priorities. They also ranked some forest values from 1 to 5. The results are the following.

Data from the Figure 1 shows that students' concerns are: health, life itself and happy family. The lowest priority was given to food. Also, a number of students mentioned different values decrease from 70 (health) to 41 (food) underlying the significance of their priorities. In comparison with data from the table (for USSR people), there is almost no difference in priorities Health (70 responses) - Happy family (63) - Love (65) - Well-being/comfort (62) - Safety (61) even in a sequence of appearance.

Figure 1. Vital values

Social values (Figure 2) were ranked from Friendship (67 responses) - Freedom (65) - Career/Interesting work (51/50) to Equity (36). In comparison with the table, the figure also shows that Peace among the nations is not a high priority - only 44 responses, and as for the other values, Interesting work and Friends are still at the top.

Figure 2. Social values

The lowest priority was given to environmental values (Figure 3), although "Clean water" and "Fresh air" values received 45 and 43 responses consequently. The lowest priority was assigned to "Forest conservation". This shows that students due to basic education at school connect environment mostly with pollution, and, as a result, their concerns are merely in this field.

Figure 3. Environmental values

Why forest conservation was ranked that low?

Forest values

Fundamental human values are still values of nowadays, and the Earth Summits displayed that people's concerns about environmental safety, water, air and forests preservation for future generations grew up dramatically over the last decades, and the evolution of people's attitude towards environment is linked to the economical sustainability and acceptance of nature conservation goals. That is true in case of developed countries and is not so obvious for the countries with economy in transition like Russia. For example, a number of NGOs try to raise international awareness on the status of remained virgin and relatively undisturbed forests in Russia. But these concerns are far behind everyday needs of common people even in forest areas, and forest conservation is not incorporated into their personal human values. Figures above are a good illustration.

The UNCED Forest Principles proclaimed that "forest resources shall be managed and used sustainably to fulfill social, economic, ecological, cultural and spirituous needs of the present and future generations". A word "present" should be stressed here, because for many people "sustainable use of natural resources" means mostly "conservation for future generations", although in the middle of the last century Gifford Pinchot wrote: "There has been a fundamental misconception that conservation means nothing but husbanding of resources for future generations. There could be no more serious mistake. The first great fact about conservation is that it stands for development" (Pinchot, 1947, p. xix).

It is well known that timber is not a priority when we talk about forest values. When people were asked to rank forest values, they put timber at lower position, following environmental characteristics, such as clean air and water, wildlife, aesthetic, and etc., although without trees there is no forest (Kharin O. and V. Teplyakov, 1990). This was also proved by the survey referred to in the paper. Respondents ranked very low the notion that forest is a source of wood (8th position), although, 5 out of 27 students gave it the highest priority (see Figure 3).

Almost 80% of students (55 out of 70) mentioned forest landscape and 18 of them gave it the highest priority (33%). Top priority was also given to the notion that forest is an oxygen producer (15 out of 48) and a place where people can collect non-timber forest products (11 from 53). More details are shown in the figure below.

Figure 4. Forest values

This diagram reflects overall perception of forest influenced by school education (landscape, oxygen, wildlife) and personal feelings (NTFPs, microclimate/relaxation, hiking). For this group of students hunting was not a priority at all (only 16 mentioned). This could be explained by the age of respondents as the real interest for hunting comes at the age of 35-45 or, perhaps, new generation would never be interested in hunting.

In Russia, he mentality has always been rooted in history and cultur. From the beginning of national development, forest was the common value for our predecessors. The well-known Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky wrote, "The forest served the Russian people in a number of ways: economically, politically and even morally. They built with pine and oak, they heated with birch and aspen, they lighted their cabins with birch splinters, they shod themselves with bast, and made household tools of linden. For centuries in the north, as in earlier times in the south, the forest fed the economy with the pelts of fur-bearing animals and the honey of forest bees. The forest served as a dependable refuge from external enemies who burdened the Russian people with sorrow and chains..." (Cited: Teplyakov et al., 1998, v).

This could be illustrated with some examples from Russian history when Russian used forest for different purposes (Teplyakov et al., 1998, Teplyakov, 1999a).

Survival. According to historical developments of human societies in many places primary forest gave people food, shelter, cloths. Also it was a source of firewood for different purposes (keeping out animals, cooking, heating the leaving places).

Religion. Forest was also a place for worships. The forest, grove, tree, stream, lake or well worship was practiced in many countries, when people survived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. At that time "holy groves" - large forest areas were the scenes of events described in ominous legends. "Holy groves" enjoyed certain advantages because humans were forbidden to make use of them. In these restricted zones, game species could reproduce and raise the offsprings without human interference, restocking adjacent forests with wildlife. Such stands also protected a variety of herbs and medicinal plants, as well as berries, and roots.

Defense. Defensive purposes of forests was another reason to protect woodlands. A line of forests that separated upper lands from the steppe served to protect the southern border of Russia from invasion. This line was of hundreds kilometers and it served until the beginning of XVIII century. In many cases the defense line of forests were abused by illegal logging or cattle grazing that damage young trees and made trails in the woods. The violators were punished severely. These forests were also protected against the fire.

Hunting. Also, tsar family members and noblemen had to protect their hunting places against other people. According to Russian chronicles, Russian Great Prince Igor killed a man, who was hunting in his lands without his permission. Same regulations were applied for beaver or bird hunting and also for the trees, in which bees collected honey. To protect hunting places of the Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (father of Peter the Great) special refuges were established such as Moose Island (now national park near Moscow) or Izmailovo (now a park in Moscow). To preserve nests of birds for falconary, the Tsar established protected areas in 7 islands in the White Sea near modern Murmansk city.

Shipbuilding. More reasons are to protect water level in the rivers for navigation as well as to easier float timber for shipbuilding. Peter the Great recognized watershed forests along rivers, and tree species suitable for shipbuilding (oak, maple, pine, elm, larch), were named restricted for public use according to his Decree of 1 February 1703. According to the Decree of 19 November 1703, it was strictly prohibited to harvest those trees, and the punishment was very severe - execution up to death.

Environmental protection. To protect forest lands against overuse, in 1888 protective functions of forests were recognized and developed in the Forest Law (Ustav). In this Law, it was underlined that forests are very useful for protection of water sources, and against water erosion, landslides, snow slides, sandy storms, etc.

When we want to look back in the human history to try to see the development of human-nature relations, we start with ancient times. At those times, nature was regarded as a World Created in which a human being is a guest. Intrusion was either inadmissible or limited by complicated rituals. Worshiping land and nature, humans took from it no more than they needed at the moment. Human beings were part of Nature, and leave in harmony with Nature was a philosophy. Forest was quite an important symbol of Nature. It was revered not only for being a resource but also as a holy bedding of the Universe. This world outlook was preserved among forest natives up to the XXth century. However, afterwards reverence gave way to strategies for taming of Nature...

In a period of Inquisition, nature was seen as Lord's creature but a lower level, because Lord gave a soul only to men. Nature was recognized as a source of evil, which should be conquered or slaved, and human life was seen as an alliance of soul, Lord's creature, with body, sin beginning of nature. This gave an opportunity to form negative attitude towards nature and a basis for violence against it. This perception was unable to support any scientific research of nature.

Renaissance period brought another view on nature. Men found it beautiful and glorious, able to deliver joy and inspiration. People recognized nature as a shelter to escape from sin and corruption of human civilization. Later on, human became a King of Nature, and his right to be the Lord for any other life forms on the Earth was proclaimed and kept over centuries. As a result, human nature was corrupted and separated from the Universe. One could say that most of human deceases appeared at the time when people became aggressive to nature and began its destruction.

The major question of nowadays - will we follow up this aggressiveness and destructive use of nature or will we change our behavior or at least develop some ethic code? (Teplyakov, 1999b).

Modern civilization does not teach people how to leave with nature. Aggressiveness towards nature and consumerism lead humankind to ecological crisis. Talking about crisis, I recall wording that belonged to a Russian poet and novelist Ivan Bunin, "Crisis is a gift of fate to a sleeping person". These words underline the necessity to solve difficult issues that could bring people to a new development. Nowadays, ecological situation could be a basis for new civilization. A concept of nature love, which is opposite to nature conquer, remains important, even if using different scientific categories like "regulation" or "optimization". To live in harmony with nature is a key concept of Aldo Leopold - "harmony between men and land" (Leopold, 1949, p.207).

Coming back to the main idea of the paper, it is worth to mention a movement towards Global Ethics, and especially Global forest ethics network to be developed (Heinonen, Pelkonen and Saastamoinen, 2002).

Conclusions

Concluding my paper, I would like to ask our politicians: "Are we still in the age striving for the better peace of meat, warmer dress, and a place closer to fire? Or are we civilized enough trying to combine our needs with nature carrying capacity?"

When Friedrich Schiller's son became a chief forester, he exclaimed: "You are a great man: you work in anonymity, without reward, free from tyranny and selfishness, and the fruits of your devotion will ripen for a distant posterity". Can you imagine these words belong to the poet, who had always seen forester as a hunter and a killer of wildlife? (Meyer, 1973).

We need foresters and people working in forest sector who know not only their profession, but also whom we are working to. We should be able to deliver our objectives and forestry objectives to common people. Forest is not a timber - forest is a temple, and praying and doing our best for today we could preserve our future.

References

Heinonen, R., P. Pelkonen and O. Saastamoinen. 2002. Need for a global forest ethics network. Panel for Global Forest Ethics, Johannesburg, 29 August, 2002

Kharin, O., and V. Teplyakov. 1990. Ekologicheskie problemy lesopolzovania. (On some ecological issues of forest use). In: Lesnaya Ekologia, Lesovodstvo b Okhrana Lesov ot Pozharov (Forest Ecology, Silviculture, and Forest Fire Control). Proceedings of Moscow Forest Engineering Institute, #234: 45-47.

Leopold, A. 1949. Sands Country almanac, and sketches here and there. New York, Oxford University Press.

Meyer, A. 1973. The Forest in the Past. In: The Forest. Robert B. Luce Co., Inc. Washington - New York.

Pinchot, G. 1947. Breaking New Ground. New York: Harcourt, Brace.

Samoreguliatsia i Prognozirovanie Sotsialnogo Povedenia Lichnosti. (Self Regulation and Prediction of Social Behavior of Individual) 1979. Leningrad. (In Russian)

Teplyakov, V. 1992. Les v Zhizni Dopetrovskoy Rusi (Forests In The Life Of Russia Before Peter The Great). Textbook. Published by Moscow Forest Engineering Institute. Moscow (In Russian)

Teplyakov, V., E. Kuzmichev, D. Baumgartner and R. Everett. 1998. A History of Russian Forestry and Its Leaders. Published by Washington State University. Pullman, WA.

Teplyakov, V. 1999a. Erosion of Social Structures in the Russian Forest Sector. In: World Forests, Society and Environment. Vol.1. Kluwer Academic publishers.

Teplyakov, V. 1999b. Nuzhen li nam professionalny kodeks сhesti lesovoda? (Do we need a professional code of forest ethics?). In: Journal "Lesnoye Khoziaystvo", No.3: 11-12 (in Russian).

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Biographical information
Dr. Victor Teplyakov is responsible for coordination of the Forest Conservation Programme for Russia and CIS countries. Prior to joining IUCN in 1999 he taught at the Moscow State Forest University from 1977 to 2000. He was also Deputy Director and Director of Scientific Research at the Russian Federal Forest Service from 1993 to 1999. He has a broad field of expertise and was the recipient of a long-term scholarship from the University of Massachusetts and Harvard University. He holds a Ph.D. in Forest Management, Inventory and Planning. He is the author and co-author of more than 110 publications. Dr. Teplyakov works in IUFRO since 1990, and currently he is a member of IUFRO Board.