On September 20, YABLOKO’s activists planted about 6,000
plantlets and 40 kilogrammes of acorns in the fields of a
plant nursery for further planting of young trees in the national
park Meschyera severely affected by fires.
About 40 party activists arrived to Kolionovo farm (Yegoryevsky
district of the Moscow region) on the invitation of farmer
Mikhail Shlyapnikov so that to help with restoration of forests
in three regions that suffered from fires: Moscow, Vladimir
and Ryazan regions.
“The national park will need about 70 years to restore after
fires while we can considerably curb this period planting
trees,” Mikhail Shlyapniokov noted. The farmers allotted 2
hectares of land under a plan nursery and YABLOKO bought plantlets
of fir-trees, pines, ashes, lime trees and other trees. The
In two years when the plantlets will grow and forests suffered
from fires cleaned, the young trees will be planted in the
forests. YABLOKO is going to participate in this too and will
take under such young forests under its patronage.
YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin also participated in the
action. In his discussion with Shlyapnokov of the reasons
of forest fires they both agreed that the Forest Code adopted
in 2006 facilitated the disaster as it absolutely ruined forest
farms and state-owned forest security agencies.
Shlyapnokov also noted that another reason was “a mess in
the Extraordinary Ministry”. According to the farmer, the
Ministry annually underrated the number of forest fires so
that to be able to fulfill the plan of fight against fires.
“The firemen had to give the real figures only when villages
began to burn,” he noted.
Shlyapnikov also said that the work of YABLOKO’s activists
will be “an example for other volunteers.”
