Rescuers continue to extinguish individual fires in Chernobyl zone and Zhytomyr region
01 May 2020
Published by https://112.international
USA – It’s been two years since Marc Trudeau, of Kimberley, took the helm of the Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society, replacing long-term coordinator Dan Murphy. A registered forest technician with a background in forestry and wildfire, Marc brings passion and knowledge to the role, evidenced by the Trench Society’s success in securing a Canada Nature Fund grant in 2019 in a joint application led by the Aq’am First Nation and in partnership with the Tobacco Plains First Nation.
The Canada Nature Fund grant commits a total of just over $650,000 to the three proponents over two years, and each co-applicant has projects planned for their respective area.
“It was certainly a great announcement for us,” said Marc. “The focus is geared towards dry, upland forest and grasslands, because Aq’am Lands, Tobacco Plains Lands and the Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem project areas fall into that open forest grassland ecosystem that historically was maintained through low intensity forest fires or First Nations fire on the land base.”
A coalition of nine East Kootenay not-for-profits, the Trench Society was created in 1996 and is a founding member of the Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem Restoration Program (or ER Program), which has been working to restore grassland and open forest on Crown land in the East Kootenay/Upper Columbia Valley region of southeastern British Columbia. The ER Program is governed by a steering committee that’s a partnership of government, industry, First Nations and non-government agencies (including the Trench Society), which oversees an area encompassing 110,000 hectares from Radium Hot Springs in the north to the Canada-U.S. border in the south. Given this massive land base, the ER Program’s goal since 2014 has been to manage 65,000 ha of core grasslands within these geographical boundaries.
For the Canada Nature Fund grant, the Trench Society is focusing on a large Crown land piece known as Indian Springs Pasture, which is located directly adjacent to the Cranbrook airport going north, and ties into the border of the Aq’am reserve.
“Our project targets areas where we have significant in-growth of forests that we want to mitigate by applying some thinning to open up the forest to open forest standards in a logical burn unit. That’s going to be done through manual work with hopefully a final treatment being prescribed fire on the land base,” said Marc.
Year one of the funding will cover planning for prescription and setting up monitoring plans. For year two, most of the funds will go toward manual treatments that will prepare the land base for prescribed fire (the latter not covered by the federal grant).
“The reason we’re doing these sorts of projects is that there are so many species that are dependent on open forests and grasslands. The species at risk we’re trying to target are American badger, Long-billed Curlew and Lewis’s Woodpecker. There is an array of plants as well. Basically, the goal is to restore their habitats the best we can… In a lot of ways, this is tying into the Kootenay Connect work.”
Led by KCP, Kootenay Connect was the only other project in B.C. to be awarded a Canada Nature Fund grant in 2019. Kootenay Connect focuses on species at risk conservation in four key wildlife corridors in the Kootenays, one being the Wycliffe Wildlife Corridor, which is located near the Trench Society’s project area.
“We see other pressures on the land base that weren’t there 20 years ago. We’re seeing more recreationalists out there on the ground, we’re seeing increases in invasive plants, and we have catastrophic wildfires happening that are changing the landscape and not in a good way,” said Marc. “When fires happen in in-growth forest, those aren’t low intensity fires. Those are high combustion stand-changing events that deplete all the goodness that comes out of an open forest.”
Originally from Winnipeg, Marc graduated with a Diploma in Integrated Forest Resource Management from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1997. There he began his career in logging and silviculture, before moving to the Kootenays in 2000, first working in forestry consulting then joining the BC Wildfire Service as an initial attack crew leader. In 2018 he stepped into the role of Trench Society Coordinator.
“The effort that we’re putting in right now is to try and manage and maintain these larger landscape level areas that provide resiliency as time goes on. We know that an open forest system that’s healthy will be more resilient as the climate changes over time.”
To learn more about the ER Program, visit: https://trench-er.com
To learn more about the organizations that make up the Trench Society, see the links below:
Cranbrook Community Forest Society
East Kootenay Invasive Plant Species Council
East Kootenay Wildlife Association
Kootenay Livestock Association
Southern Guides & Outfitters Association
Waldo Stockbreeders Livestock Association
Windermere District Farmers Institute
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The Kootenay Conservation Program is a broad partnership of over 80 organizations from across the Kootenays that works to conserve landscapes in order to sustain naturally functioning ecosystems. Learn more at www.kootenayconservation.ca.
01 May 2020
Published by https://112.international
UKRAINE – Employees of the State Emergency Service on Friday, May 1, continue to extinguish individual fires of decay in the Chernobyl zone and the Zhytomyr region. The press center of the department reports.
In particular, in the Zhytomyr region, all fires in the Olevsky (near the village of Rudnya-Pergan), Luginsky (near the village of Povcha), Ovruchsky (near the village of Luchanka and the village of Dubovy Gai) are localized.
“There is no open fire. The forces of the State Emergencies Ministry are helping forestry workers to extinguish the decay of individual foci of forest litter, stumps and wood,” the report said.
In total, 587 people and 92 pieces of equipment were involved in putting out fires in the region, including 100 people from the State Emergencies Ministry and 31 pieces of equipment.
Meanwhile, according to rescuers, fires in the forests of the Exclusion Zone and unconditional (mandatory) resettlement are localized.
“As of 7:00 on May 1, the departments of the State Emergency Situations are providing assistance to State Agency for Management of the Exclusion Zone. In extinguishing individual fires of smoldering peat bogs,” the report says.
203 people and 65 pieces of equipment were involved in extinguishing, of which 145 people and 35 pieces of equipment from the State Emergencies Ministry.
Radiation background in Kyiv, Kyiv region and in the Exclusion Zone within the limits of natural background values
As we reported before, on April 28, in Chornobyl exclusion zone, two last fire seats were localized,
