Posted on December, 22 2005

The Eurovision song contest was responsible for my discovery of some of Europe’s little-known jungles.

Ukrainian officials had significantly relaxed visa restrictions to their country in connection with the European song contest held in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and I jumped at the chance to spend a day with a Ukrainian colleague visiting the remarkable floodplain forests of Transcarpathia, an area tucked in the arch of the Carpathian Mountains in the north-western corner of Ukraine, close to the borders with Slovakia, Hungary and Romania.

by Andreas Beckman - Deputy Director of WWF Danube Carpathian Programme


Transcarpathian jungles

Emerging from customs in Chop, on the Ukrainian-Hungarian border, I was met by Bohdan Prots, a young scientist working for the State Museum of Natural History in Lviv and leader of a project focussed on riverine forests in the Carpathians supported by the conservation organisation WWF in cooperation with the Karl-Franzens University in Graz and the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Monks Wood in the UK.

Bohdan was cheerful, as ever, despite his two hours of sleep the night before. His young son had been baptised, and the occasion was celebrated by the young boy’s parents and friends until early in the morning. We jumped into his car and headed east toward the Borzhava and Tysa rivers.

The WWF panda logo on his car seemed to have more power here than in other countries where it was more readily recognised: none of the frequent police controls bothered to stop us. “They think we might be something official, so think it is better to leave us alone”, Bohdan said with a smile.

We passed the village of Veliky Berehy and then left the road and bumped and rolled across fields before donning rubber boots to make our way into the forest hugging the banks of the Borzhava River.

Riverine forests are the most diverse of all European ecosystems, both in terms of plant and animal life. They are also among the most vulnerable, with only a few highly threatened examples remaining on the continent. According to the research conducted by Bohdan, his partner Anton Drescher of the University of Graz, and their team, the forests that I was about to visit represent one of the largest surviving fluvial forests in Europe.

The remarkable forests that Bohdan and his colleagues have been studying and seeking to protect are the creation of the Tysa (Tisza), Borzhava, Latorytsya, Uzh and other rivers that emerge from the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains and flow south and west through the Pannonian plain in Hungary, draining eventually into the mighty Danube and from there into the Black Sea. The regular flooding of the rivers delivers a rich mixture of nutrients that acts like growth hormones for the trees and plants in the floodplains.


Cathedral

“Look how fast it grows here!” Bohdan said. The track road that had existed here last year was already grown over. Two storks gazed on us from their nest perched atop a high utility pole as we pushed our way through dense undergrowth and across puddles to enter the forest.

Inside was a cathedral. Huge trees thrust up from the forest floor like columns. Here and there, the green canopy they carried let through shafts of sunlight onto the tidy forest floor. Thick vines, clothed in moss, snaked their way up the trunks of the mighty trees. Bohdan pressed ahead, excited to be in what for him was clearly a spiritual place.

The floodplain forest is home to a unique combination of ash and oak species. The ash is naturally home to such waterlogged areas, depending on the regular flooding to grow and survive. Oaks, on the other hand, do not require the flooding, yet clearly benefit from it.

“In the spring, this area is sometimes under a meter or more of water,” said Bohdan, marking on his leg how far the water came up to. The regular flooding delivers to the trees water and rich nutrients that allow the oaks and ash to grow to as much as 46 meters in height. The floods also limit the extent to which the trees must compete with one another for water and nutrients, making it possible for the mighty trees to grow in close proximity to one another.

We came to the Borzhava River. About 5 meters across, swift and muddy, with steep and slippery banks covered with dense vegetation. Before me, it seemed, I might any moment see Humphrey Bogart pushing through the jungle undergrowth on the African Queen. “The river is as much as 5-7 meters deep,” Bohdan said. The immense trees have deep root systems that hold the soil, allowing the river to etch out a deep and narrow course. The deep banks and river bottom, and the nooks and crannies among the roots of the trees, create a variety of habitats for numerous fish species. “Last year, a 46 kg catfish was caught here!” Bohdan exclaimed.

The only thing disturbing my visions of the African jungle was the mass of plastic bottles and bags caught against a tree. Bohdan took a picture of the mess – an example to show villagers of the effects of their waste disposal practices. The mess will be washed away by the next floods – but only to be deposited in Hungary or further downstream; and until waste management practices change, a new mess is certain to take its place.

Bohdan’s team, which includes botanists, zoologists and soil experts, have already completed mapping much of the Transcarpathian region. They have identified three areas with the greatest biological value, virtually unknown and unprotected to date, including the 3,200 hectares along the Borzhava River that we were now moving through. Other areas hug the Latorytsa and the Tysa rivers.


Lifeline

Later in the day we moved on to the swathe of forest hugging the banks of the Tysa river, which springs from the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine then meanders its way along the Ukraine-Romanian border before flowing on into Hungary. The river and the forests that girdle it act as an important corridor for birds and mammals. Among the trees are many Black poplars, which have nearly disappeared from other parts of Europe.

Standing on the rust smeared bridge near Vinogradiv, gazing at the majestic river meandering among gravel banks toward Hungary, I thought of the toxic cocktail of cyanide and heavy metals that, just five years earlier, had broken out of tailing pool near Baia Mare in Romania and poisoned the lower reaches of the river in Hungary. It drove home the common fate that connects the people living along this river.

Devastating floods soon followed that put large parts of Romania, Ukraine, and especially Hungary under water. As a result of this massive flood event and smaller ones that have followed, flood protection and flood management have become a focus of international concern in the Tysa river basin.

The 2000 deluge overwhelmed the corset of dykes and other technical flood defenses which have girdled the river since the middle of the 19th century, and drove him the limits of technical solutions. In response, the Hungarian government has fundamentally changed its flood management policy, shifting its emphasis from technical measures to working with the natural dynamics. A government programme has been launched to give space to the river by removing the tight corset of dykes. WWF has been working with the Hungarian government and local stakeholders to restore the natural floodplain, providing not only flood protection but also biodiversity and associated socioeconomic benefits.

On the upper reaches of the river in Ukraine, much of the river has remained largely unregulated, with the floodplains left largely intact. The issue for flood management here is protection rather than much more expensive restoration – holding onto the floodplain forests that already exist, and that help to regulate the river’s regular flooding. This is becoming an increasing challenge as a result of the economic and social changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Illegal logging has become a serious economic and environmental problem in the area. The consequences of the unsustainable forestry practices are felt not only locally, but also much further downstream. The indiscriminate felling of trees, especially along the upper reaches of the Tysa, has been linked to the increasing incidence of devastating floods not only in Ukraine, but also further downstream in Hungary as well. Forest protection is thus not just an environmental issue, but also a socioeconomic and security one, with international importance.


Protection

Thanks to their work over the past couple of years, Bohdan and his team have put the once hardly known riverine forests of Transcarpathia firmly on the proverbial map. The big challenge now is to keep them there.

At present, the forests have no legal protection. Bohdan and his colleagues are already well-advanced in the painstaking process of negotiating with the local communities, private land owners, and the state forest company to transform the forests into a protected landscape area – a form of protection that permits mixed use, including core areas with strict nature protection, and others where socio-economic and other uses are permitted.

The communities have been generally in favour. “Some care about the nature and want to see it protected, and others see it as an opportunity to develop eco-tourism in a region with little industry or development, but many natural qualities”, explained Bohdan. The main challenge is money. The provincial government will have to foot the bill for the new protected area, and provincial as well as communal coffers are empty.

But legal protection can only be considered a short-term, and ultimately defensive, measure. Over the longer-term, the survival of these unique forests is connected with the well-being of the people living around them. The area is poor, with unemployment rates as high as 30%, or even higher. Many of the people in the area work abroad, in the Czech Republic and elsewhere. Without sustainable livelihoods, pressure on the forests will continue.

Bohdan and his team and colleagues at WWF are now beginning to look for opportunities to generate local incomes while holding onto the area’s greatest natural assets – finding sustainable ways to draw economic profit from the area’s natural capital. Increasing ties between Ukraine and the European Union can be expected to bring some opportunities, but also threats, for nature protection and sustainable livelihoods in the border region of Transcarpathia.

Certainly part of the solution is close at home, drawing on traditional uses of the forests and their resources, from sustainable logging to collection of mushrooms, berries, and other products, though with modern approaches to marketing and distribution. Environmentally-friendly tourism also has a role to play. Additional answers may come from across the border in Romania, where WWF has been working with local farmers, foresters, businesspeople and communities to develop payments for environmental services that can help secure local incomes while preserving the rich landscape and natural resources of the area.

Efforts to find new ways to profit from and preserve such unique natural resources are just beginning. But already it is clear that the result of these efforts is important not only for the long-term preservation of some of Europe’s very last and most valuable wetland jewels, but also for the livelihoods of people living both near to the forests and much farther away.



Profile: Bohdan Prots

Bohdan has travelled a hard road to get to where he is today, standing in a forest that he is studying and trying to protect. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy in Ukraine took a nose dive. Wages at the institute where he was working as a researcher and writing his PhD were not paid for more than a year. To make ends meet, Bohdan took on a second job buying and selling things. He worked days at the institute, and nights at his other job. He had a number of opportunities to go into business and lead a more comfortable life, but remained committed to science and conservation. It was difficult, but eventually paid off. After a couple of years, he began to win fellowships for research and teaching abroad – first to Korea, then Poland, Austria, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom.

His time abroad not only eased his financial situation, but also enriched him with foreign experience. “If you want to help Ukraine, give Ukrainians a chance to see and experience your countries, to open their eyes and bring back with them what they learn,” Bohdan told me. I asked him why he stayed in Ukraine if he had so many opportunities to live and work elsewhere, and earn significantly more money. “I love my country”, he said, shrugging his shoulders, “only here am I complete”.

I asked Bohdan about the popular Orange Revolution that in December had inspired the world with its show of peaceful people power, toppling a corrupt and fairly autocratic ruler. At the time, Bohdan had told his supervisor at WWF not to expect much for the two months of the revolution. He and his wife participated in daily demonstrations in Lviv and collected €600 – more than 3 average monthly salaries – and sent it to Kiev to support the crucial protests that were taking place there. “This was about our future!” said Bohdan – about his own future, that of his fellow Ukrainians, as well as of the environment he was working to study and protect. “We need a society with the rule of law, in which people in high places cannot just cut down a virgin forest to line their pockets,” he explained.

Did the revolution meet his expectations? The new president Viktor Yuschenko was certainly an improvement over his predecessor, but too caught up in the old system to make the clean break that was needed. Corruption was still too common, still practised by people in high places. Past crimes were still unsolved and unpunished. “If necessary, we will go out on the streets again and have another and yet another revolution, to get the society we want,” he replied.