1011-A1
Albina Pashkevich[1]
This study presents the development of forest-based activities in the marginal areas of the Russian North, based on the utilization of the river basins providing raw materials and serving as the natural link between the previously established core and periphery. The forest sector is an important factor in economic development, often serving as the only source of human subsistence and well-being in these territories. The role of the marginal areas in remaining the source of a continuous supply of raw material to the main manufacturing centres is crucial. The logging enterprises in the periphery continue to depend on the economically more advanced core. However, the results of recent development have shown that marginal areas are becoming increasingly active and concerned with promotion of their economic development by restructuring, rationalizing and modernizing the forest-based activities.
In the era of an increasingly globalised world economy, structural changes in the West moving away from resource-intensive production does not seem to affect the Russian economy in the same way. However, the urgent need for further diversification of the region’s economy remains, even if the regional development programme lacks alternatives to enhance regional renewal. The difficulties experienced by the forest sector firms in the periphery during the economic transition are connected to the inherited spatial organisation of the sector and the relationship existed among the forested areas and centres of further manufacturing. This paper is aiming to analyse how the marginal areas in Russia develop. How does the inherited spatial and economic structure of the forest sector respond to the pressures and demands posed by the new economic order? Are there any signs that the previously established spatial and organisational structure of the forest sector has been challenged by the emerging market economy? Are there any alternatives to the present ‘growth poles’ - strategy to enhance regional renewal?
Some of the data used in the current paper was presented in the working report for the EU-funded 'Barents Sea Impact Study’ (BASIS), which was primarily concerned with the eventual consequences of global climatic change. The empirical data used for the analysis in this paper covers the area of the Northern Dvina river basin (Arkhangelsk oblast) and administrative districts adjacent to its territory. It includes the six administrative districts - Primorsky (1), Kholmogorsky (2), Pinega (3), Vinogradovsky (4), Verkhnaya Toyima (5), and Krasnoborsky (6) (Figure 1). The study area is about 111,900 km2 with a current population of some 843,600 inhabitants. This represents 19% of the oblast’s area but 56% of its population. This disproportion is due to the inclusion of the Arkhangelsk Industrial Centre (AIC) comprising the territories of three largest cities - Arkhangelsk, Severodvinsk and Novodvinsk. The districts chosen for this study districts in the Northern Dvina valley contain nearly 725.4 million m3 of growing stock, which is about 32% of the total forest resources in the Arkhangelsk oblast. The Pinega and Verkhnaya Toyima districts contain the biggest proportion of the valley’s forest resources.
Figure 1. The Northern Dvina river basin and its administrative districts.
The overall importance of the forest sector to the economy of the Arkhangelsk oblast remains vital. The sector contributes with 54-60% to total industrial output and it occupies almost 50% of region’s labour force. The role of the sector for the districts economy is expected to represent even greater importance. The analyses of the recent trends in the forest sector production in the river basin allow the following generalisations. Logging activities within the area has during the period 1988 to 1996 declined from 8 to 2.7 million m3 of timber (Figure 2, overleaf). Prior to 1996 Pinega regularly had a leading position among the selected districts, with a top level of nearly 2.2 million m3 in 1989. During the following eight years production fell by 70% to a mere 654,800 m3 in 1996 (Layton and Pashkevich 2000). During the same period the timber production in Verkhnaya Toyima dropped to one third. Since 1996 the timber production has increased in all districts, with the highest levels in Pinega, Kholmogorsky and Verkhnaya Toyima. The lowest logging volumes consistently appeared in the districts that were nearest to and most distant from the AIC. Forest resources of the Primorsky district had long been exploited and are therefore of a lesser value to the loggers. However, if the production of sawn timber is analysed, the concentration of the mechanical wood-processing capacities in the Primorsky district becomes evident (Figure 3, overleaf).
Figure 2. Logging volumes within the Northern Dvina valley 1986-1999. Source: Layton and Pashkevich 2000.
Figure 3. Sawn timber outputs in the Northern Dvina basin 1986-1999.
It appears that production volumes in the Kholmogorsky and Pinega districts located in geographical proximity to AIC infrastructure showed the tendency to recover faster compared to the other districts. At least, according to the production figures, Northern Dvina’s districts can be divided into two categories. The first category consisting of the districts 2-6 can be regarded as ‘timber bases’ providing timber for the enterprises located within district 1, and other minor forest industries along the major river. The second category consists of Primorsky district which has only a small share of the of timber supply (see Figure 2), but it makes up virtually 95% of all of the sawn timber production in the river basin, which is clearly shown in Figure 3. The observed pattern helps to reveal considerable variations in the outputs of the finished products among the river basin districts supports the core-periphery model of territorial organisation of the forestry sector. This pattern is seen as a result of a combined effect of the Soviet political framework and exclusive reliance on the natural networks. Yet, another important consequence of the clear division between the peripheral river basin districts (2-6) only acting as sources of the raw material supply to the core district (1) is the unbalanced structure of their economies with the logging activity being a dominant branch with all of the processing industries located in f the central district.
The increase in industrial outputs of the forest-based activities in the river basin since 1996 was made possible through rationalisation and restructuring of the forest sector structure (Pashkevich 2003). Although, the overall production volumes of the 1990s are noticeably lower compared with the late 1980s. Market environment unavoidably forced local producers to rationalise and adjust their outputs to the demands from international and domestic buyers. Moreover, the rationalisation was accomplished at a high price and had severe socio-economic consequences; especially for the thousands of workers who lost their jobs as many logging enterprises went bankrupt in the beginning of 1990s. Those that managed to survive are facing other sets of problems that in the presence of the state monetary support and centrally-planned economy were non-existent. One of the vital components of the present situation is that since the beginning of transition the transport expenditures were added to the overall production cost (including forest roads as links to the resources and actual delivery cost to the buyers of the raw timber), i.e. infrastructure costs were added to the enterprises costs (ibid.). The main attributes of the existing transport network within the river basin and their influence in the present production volumes will be discussed further in the following section.
The extensive river system made it possible to connect most peripheral timber supply areas with the manufacturing centres in AIC. This allowed taking maximum advantage of the natural water systems in order to minimise expenditures (Kortelainen 1999). The structure and organisation of forestry and forest-based industries in Northern Dvina river basin always have been connected with the development of transport networks. During the Soviet period the river basin acted as the one-way raw material supplier to the few centrally located manufacturing industries with more than 50% of the logged timber transported along the Northern Dvina to the AIC.
Northern Dvina continues to serve as an important route-way, both for river navigation (passenger and goods traffic) and timber transport. One of the main changes in the post-soviet utilisation of the river was the 1993 abolishment of the free floating. Nowadays, the timber is transported downstream by rafting companies operating in the river from the end of spring to the beginning of summer. Hence, the main log-floating season generally lasts for only three or four weeks. There is only one railway of regional importance - the Arkhangelsk-Karpogory line, connecting the Primorsky, Kholmogorsky and Pinega districts. In addition to the railway transport, there is a variable density of the road infrastructure in the river basin. The density and quality of roads in the northern districts is traditionally better than in the middle and southern parts of the region. The most developed road systems (public and/or belonging to the military or the penal system) are in the major cities, exhibiting the highest road densities (e.g. Arkhangelsk 2.6 km/km2, Novodvinsk 1.2 km/km2). Also in the adjacent districts of Primorsky (1,683 km of roads) and Kholmogorsky (1,409 km), followed by Pinega (1,325 km) and Verkhnaya Toyima (1,246 km) (Goscomstat, 1998 p. 80-81). However, many of the routes are exclusively winter roads and rarely travelled during the summer months. Accordingly, winter roads provide the main means for log transport in most areas. The actual road densities and the modes of transportation established within the river basin reveal the fact that their development was neglected due to the reliance exclusively on the free-floating. Therefore, the Northern Dvina and Pinega rivers still account for the long-distance bulk transportation down to the coastal industries.
The previously established spatial and organisational framework of the forest sector is beginning to respond to the changed economic conditions, but it works only for the centrally located districts. The others urgently need to improve the road system as alternative to river transport. The detailed examination of the problems that marginal forested areas are experiencing is presented in the following section. It is clear that the market forces have created new opportunities for the marginal areas and challenged the perception of their needs and policies towards them. The further analysis of the present development of the logging activities in one of the river basin districts helps to evaluate the adjustment to the new market environment.
The minor logging companies provide many examples of bottom-up planning - whereby the periphery is trying new ways to survive and yet become less dependent on a single market of the core. Being capital-poor, however, these supply regions have great difficulty in resisting the core’s efforts to dominate and exploit them. For our case study the Verkhnaya Toyima district (5) was chosen and the activities of the one logging company were analysed (Figure 4). There are some 24,100 people inhabiting the area with 87% of them living in the rural settlements. The district is sparsely populated with the density of population being only 1.2 persons per km2. The district holds 23% of the total Northern Dvina river basin forest resources (Layton and Pashkevich, 2000). The map reveals minor tributary rivers, railway tracks and roads extending some 100-150 kilometres from the Northern Dvina, suggesting a 200-300 kilometres wide belt of accessible forests along the valley. Here roads follow the river on both sides above the floodplain, but there are several bridges across it as well as ferries. Beyond the watershed to the east are the headwaters of the Pinega river, where settlement and logging is more recent, penetrating some of the last virgin forest areas.
In the mid-1990s, company named ‘Dvinles’ with its head office in Dvinskoy, expanded its logging activities by taking over several settlements of the bankrupt logging enterprise (in particular - Palova, Lambas and Krasnaya). All of their forest sites or camps had felling capacities of 50,000-100,000 m3 of timber per year, but at that time, they were barely functional. ‘Dvinles’ proved to be a more viable venture, as most of the forest utilised by the former logging enterprise was accessible from the main river. Nowadays, the ‘Dvinles’ is among the very few logging companies in the region with an annual production as high as 300,000 m3 of timber. The company maintains its present volume of production, thus providing jobs for its present c. 2,200 workers. If their dependants are included, these numbers becomes even higher and up to 3,000-4,000 people are thereby supported (Kondratev 1998).
Figure 4. The Vyisky logging unit settlements on the headwaters of the Pinega and their links with Dvinskoy.
Due to the lack of funds for the construction of new all-season forest roads during recent winters, some 80% of the timber is transported from the logging sites to the river on the frozen winter roads (resulting in their intensive usage), and only 20% is transported from April to November on the poorly maintained permanent roads. For 1999, it looked as though these proportions would be 85% and 15%, respectively. The situation was however different in the past - up until the mid-1990s, when some 40% of the timber transported from the forest sites down to the river during the four winter months of December to March and the biggest part (60%) went down by the river between April and November. Recently, the company initiated the construction of a new hard-surface road to connect Krasnaya with Dvinskoy. The road to Lambas is functioning but its construction was never completed. One of the main goals is to improve and modernise timber transportation overland. With the improvement of lorry transport it will be possible to transport all of the harvested forest resource over land.
There is no doubt that the appearance of small businesses should be considered a positive tendency in the economy of the country, as it in general affects the quality of products. For example, many of the logging enterprises in the river basin are introducing their own sawmilling capacities and beginning to sell their products directly to buyers abroad or outside the oblast - thereby avoiding the manufactures in the AIC. Different types of self-organisation of forest sector activities are taken place within the river basin districts. Large wood-processing enterprises have established economic links with the local producers of timber in order to secure their timber supplies. Nevertheless, it is revealed that contacts are made throughout the valley (and beyond) and that distance is not so much of a barrier to contact as might have been expected. The development and maintenance of the existing transport infrastructure, as well as market adjustments will help to further the general level of interaction within and between the oblast’s centre and its peripheral districts.
Regional development of Russia’s numerous territories in the North seem to be a feature from the Soviet past rather than anything that would follow any Western models. It is true that the deep socio-economic crisis leaves very little alternative to substitute towards regional revival. Instead it utilises previously established division between main economic activities, where primary activities and further processing of the natural resources continue to dominate at least on the regional level. The inherited spatial and economic structure of the forest-based activities within the river basin being re-worked in order to cope with the conditions posed by market economy. The increased production of timber and sawn goods support this notion. Overall the core-periphery relations within the river basin have not been challenged to any great extend and logging activities on the margins continue to be economically dependent on the core. However, in the long run the existing relations will eventually be challenged.
In any case, as a guiding principle, it seems more reasonable that marginal areas will continue to operate through economies of scale based on the raw material utilisation in the new institutional and economic context of the market economy. The present stage of their development shows that marginal areas are obviously trying to respond to the changed opportunities through the regeneration of entrepreneurial capacities establishing small and medium size enterprises. The present phase of the development in the periphery proceeds through adjustments of declining logging activities creating a competitive and modern environment that provides the basis for further diversification of peripheral local economies. The conditions and strategy for present and future development of the marginal areas are different. It is no longer a development of one area as a closed system, but the nature and terms of exchange with the rest of the economy, which continuously redefine its competitiveness. Marginal areas are changing their dependant roles and beginning to act on increasingly expanding geographical scale.
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| [1] Research Scientist, Spatial
Modelling Centre (SMC), Department of Social and Economic Geography, Umeå
University, Box 839, 981 28 Kiruna, Sweden. Fax: +46 (0) 980 676 26; Email:
[email protected]
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