MINSK, 19 April (BelTA) – Belarus was able to rehabilitate about a third of the forests contaminated in the wake of the Chernobyl accident, Director of the Institute of Forest of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences Alexander Kovalevich told reporters, BelTA has learned.
“Now 17% of forests still remains in the zone of contamination. Right after the accident 25% of forests was contaminated,” Alexander Kovalevich said.
He also noted that Belarus has developed special security measures and the system of forest management in the contaminated territories. “We have almost solved the problem of forest management in these areas. Most importantly we have developed a monitoring system,” Alexander Kovalevich noted.
After the accident, we needed to plant forest in certain territories in the contamination zone but we did not have such experience back then. We solved the problem with the help of aerial sowing and automatic forest-planting equipment. Today, almost 200,000 hectares on these lands are new forests,” Alexander Kovalevich noted.
According to him, much more needs to be done to improve the level of fire safety. The main threat is cross-border fires which come from Russia and Ukraine.
The use of the fire chemical solution Metafosyl helps solve the problem. It has been developed with the participation of the Research Institute of Physicochemical Problems of the Belarusian State University. The solution can block off fire within 45 days. “I think the solution is undervalued. It should be more widely used,” Alexander Kovalevich noted.
Alexander Kovalevich is among the participants of the international conference “Chernobyl: Contribution of Scientific and Artistic Intellectuals of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The forum has been organized by Belarus' Information Ministry, the National Academy of Sciences, the Emergencies Ministry, Belarus' Union of Writers, and the CIS Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation. The conference has been supported by the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministries of energy, health, natural resources and environment protection, culture; and also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications, the Russian Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”, MGIMO; Rosatom Corporation and House of Press (Belarus).
