A meeting of the operational headquarters of the Ministry of Forestry was held in the Lepel district to eliminate the consequences of natural disasters that damaged the forest fund

The state is ready to allocate additional equipment to the regions for the development of timber felled by adverse weather conditions, if necessary. This was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, Petr Parkhomchik, at an off-site meeting of the Ministry of Forestry in the Lepel district.

"We have been engaged in eliminating the consequences prepared for us by nature for a week now. These are not the first such events, because in the last five to six years, these windfalls have been happening almost systematically. We have already learned to develop solutions to these issues. Today, this has affected the Vitebsk and Minsk regions. If we take the Minsk region, the issues there are simpler, because all the places where the forest was felled are easily accessible. It is a bit more complicated in the Vitebsk region. We flew over the Orsha district, closer to Smolensk, and there, of course, the soil is waterlogged, and it is clear that it is practically impossible to reach these places and remove the felled timber," he said.

The regions have been tasked with developing accessible areas as soon as possible. As the Deputy Prime Minister clarified, by the end of October. "As for waterlogged areas, we will set goals and tasks taking into account nature," Petr Parkhomchik added. "If there are frosts in November (as has happened before), then we will work in November and carry out these developments."

The regions affected by the adverse weather currently have sufficient resources. "Regarding personnel and equipment - I actively asked this question to the heads of the Minsk, Orsha, and Vitebsk (State Forestry Production Associations and their divisions), there are enough people and sufficient equipment. Although we are ready to provide additional equipment. "AMKODOR" is successfully coping with the task, so we are ready to supply the necessary number of harvesters and forwarders in the shortest possible time to solve this problem as quickly as possible or to accelerate the solution of the problems that have arisen," the Deputy Prime Minister added.

Representatives of various departments and divisions at an on-site headquarters for disaster response in Lepel district discussed how to clear windfalls in the shortest possible time and develop all accessible and hard-to-reach areas. Agency specialists surveyed the plantations damaged by the adverse weather. Windfalls, uprooted trees, and plantations requiring clear-cutting sanitary felling have been recorded in almost every region of the country, with a total area of 4.5 thousand hectares. Forestry enterprises in Minsk and Vitebsk regions suffered the most; for example, Lepel forestry alone has 615 hectares, and Borovlyany special forestry has 600.9 hectares. The development of damaged plantations along roadside strips and settlements is currently underway.