On August 22-23 2023 we conducted practical training and field workshop on relevant methods of forest roads planning, design and construction in the conditions of Ukrainian Carpathians.

The training gathered a total of 29 participants, representing branches of SE "Forests of Ukraine" from Zakarpattya, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Chernivtsi regions, the Carpathian and Podillya offices of SE "Forests of Ukraine", the Western and South-Western interregional forestry and hunting departments of the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine, a state forest inventory and planning organization, a road construction company, a non-governmental organization in the field of geodesy, and a company that provides geodetic and laser spatial scanning services.

The organizers of the training were: our organization – NGO "FORZA", branch "Vyhoda Forestry" of SE "Forests of Ukraine" and trainers - Volodymyr Korzhov and Mykhailo Starchevskyi.

The event was held in accordance with the request for training on the topic of forest road construction, received during the polling among professionals regarding the preferred topics for best management practices training series.

The training was the part of the project "USFS Water quality BMPs for Ukraine", which is being implemented with the financial support of the US Forest Service.

The first, theoretical day of the training, covered the following topics: changes and new regulations in legislative provision in the field of water quality integrated into the forestry and forest management activities; regulatory requirements for parameters of forest roads; national standard for forest roads design; peculiarities of planning of the forest roads network and laying their routes on mountain slopes; ecological aspects of forest road construction; experience and practices of design and construction of forest roads on the basis of nature conservation, obtained from the United States Forest Service and Republic of Austria.

The second day of the training, partly theoretical, partly field, started with an online presentation of Bohdan Senevich, certified forest roads engineer, which covered elaboration of the project and cost estimate documentation for the forest roads and the stages of documentation approval. The second part of the morning block was a presentation of Stepan Dzhurylo, a geodetic engineer, who introduced innovative tools for positioning of forest road routes based on laser ground and remote scanning and use of GIS technologies.

The field part started in Lyudvykivske forest range, where Ihor Lazorko, director of Vyhoda Forestry together with Volodymyr Korzhov talked about the features of creating of forest roads network on mountain slopes with minimal impact on the hydrological regime of watersheds, the quality of surface water and the creation of conditions for effective forestry activities. The road, on the example of which the conversation was held, was put into operation at the end of 2021, and it is also important that this road, with a length of 3.9 km, is ensuring its multifunctional purposes, in particular serving to the local population and tourists due to its convenience and equipped observation spots.

Later, Mr. Korzhov and Mr. Dzhurylo presented how to plan the routes of a forest road on steep slopes and arrange its individual elements, and Mr. Dzhyrylo familiarized participants with the operation of devices for ground scanning of forest lands.

After that, the group moved to the wooded areas of the Svichivske forest range, where they looked at the process of forest road along with fire protection reservoir construction, which is still ongoing and is to be completed by the end of this year. These infrastructural objects are intended to provide access to forest areas, where close to nature silvicultural approaches will be used being the most appropriate in the conditions of climate change and vulnerability of mountainous forests, which in turn will mitigate negative impacts of climate change on forest stands, namely long periods of droughts and rapid intensive floods. The road infrastructure project foresees the construction of a 6.7 km long road, three reinforced concrete bridges, and the construction of 86 meters of riverbank enforcement with gabions. A multi-purpose (fire and flood prevention) reservoir with an area of 0.56 hectares will serve as a water source for firefighting needs and, together with a dry polder, for interception of excess water during heavy floods.

We believe that the knowledge, information and impressions gained during this training will bring good results.

We are grateful to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for our protection and the opportunity to work.

Presentations and materials, mentioned during the training, can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sNuPDYWTHsymokYLT6vOp8IxRVfRQdsD?usp=sharing

Online presentation of Bohdan Senevych was live on Fb group "Forest and Climate", where the recording can be watched: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1305146519839739/posts/1967114313642953/

Pictures from the training are stored here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/99norDYsBqLJX5zi8

Bonus: Links to the presentations and materials of the webinars "USFS Water Quality Best Management Practices for Ukraine" can be found at this link: https://forza.org.ua/uk/usfs-water-quality-bmps-ukraineukr/pidsumky-treningu-naykrashchi-upravlinski-praktyky-povyazani-z

Bonus: Webinar on the basic notions of the gender equality can be watched at this link: https://youtu.be/mBaDr7-g-B4, and those, who want to know more on this topic, can check this link: https://forza.org.ua/uk/lisy-v-zhinochyh-rukah/marafon-gendernoyi-rivnosti-yak-ce