FORESTRY BRANCH OF ZHYTOMYR REGION: PROBLEMS AND EFFICIENCY OF OPERATION

The article reveals the key problems of forestry development in Zhytomyr region, namely: mismatch of forest conditions with economic and ecological requirements, reduction of forest area, anthropogenic transformation of forest landscapes, reduction of natural productivity and impoverishment of forest biodiversity, disproportion between forest harvesting and reforestation, inefficiency of control over unauthorized forest felling, sanitation, and so on. It is established that the fullness of forest plantations is lower than the potential and optimal level for their age. Thus, the current state of forests does not allow proper use of the possibilities of forest vegetation conditions. The author calculated the main indicators of forestry management in Zhytomyr region in 2015-2017. The share of reproduction of forest plantations in relation to the total area of felling is rather low: from 16.1% to 18.6%. The analysis of forestry management has shown that, with the preservation of existing volumes of felling and reforestation, there is a high probability of losing up to 92% of the forest fund of Zhytomyr region in 20 years. Investigation of sanitary felling problem has made it possible to establish that instead of extracting dry, damp, weakened, damaged by pests of individual trees or their groups from the woods, old oaks and pines are cut down. Thus, sanitary felling can be a cover for commercial timber harvesting and threaten forest biodiversity. Consequently, the problems of deepening of the disparities between the forest resource base, the opportunities for forest exploitation and forest use continue to intensify. To overcome these crisis phenomena, the author proposed separate measures for regulatory regulation of the forestry industry