Analysis of forest use in Arkhangelsk region for the period from 2006 to 2014

2 Northern Research Institute of Forestry, Arkhangelsk The article gives assessment of the current level of forest resources use in the Arkhangelsk region as a result of the timber industry economic activity for the period from 2006 to 2014. Despite the considerable forest resources of the Arkhangelsk region (industrial forests occupies 72,4 %), it should be noted that the allowable cut is used on half. This is due to many reasons: inadequate infrastructure, uneven distribution of forest management on the regional territory in the past and confined it to the transport ways (rail and large floatable rivers), economic inaccessibility of certain assortments (mostly pulp-wood) and low-grade wood in the Central and Eastern parts of the region, located at a considerable distance from the places of deep wood processing. Dynamics of harvested areas and volumes by clear and selective cutting during the period from 2006 to 2014 shows a general trend of selective cuttings share increasing. Distribution of selective cutting volumes in the region is extremely uneven. The analysis shows that high forest exploiting intensity is observed in the Southern part of region, in the middle part the high intensity of forest use is observed only in Karpogorsky forest management unit, in the Northern part of the Arkhangelsk region is low intensity forest management. Comparative analysis of summer and winter harvesting volumes showed that most part of the actual harvested timber occurs in the winter (66 %), due to the lack of all year-round forest roads. Infrastructure development, selective cutting introduction, facilities of low-grade wood processing development will contribute to forestry intensification and increasing the forest complex stability of the Arkhangelsk region.