TACIS Project Newsletter No.1: Improvement in Forest Fire Response System

II. Project Synopsis

The project synopsis summarises the projects as conceived by the Russian Federal Forest Service and the European Commission, and as specified in the consortium’s contract with the European Commission.

1. Project beneficiary and partner

The Federal Forest Service of Russia is the beneficiary, and its Central Base for Aerial Forest Fire Protection (Avialesookhrana) is the project partner.

2. Project objectives

The overall goal is to support the establishment of management systems that will enable conservation aims to be achieved in the implementation of sustainable forest management objectives. Specifically, the project will aim to: (i) foster the development of sound and cost-effective fire and phyto-sanitary monitoring systems; (ii) improve information standards in support of monitoring and management objectives; (iii) support local management systems in making effective use of available information; and (iv) improve the response to forest fires, pests and diseases.

3. Planned outputs

Planned outputs in support of the objectives are: (i) a comprehensive forest protection system integrated with a sustainable forest management strategy; (ii) an operational fire and phyto-sanitary monitoring and information system in Pushkino that will assist forest protection and management at federal level; (iii) an operational fire and phyto-sanitary monitoring and information system in Irkutsk and Pushkino to address forest management/protection issues at regional level; and (iv) establish links between federal, regional and local stakeholders so as to enable them to improve their response to forest events.

4. Project activities

To achieve the envisaged outputs the project will provide: (i) management support including consultation on policy, legislative and regulatory, institutional and economic issues, so as to assist counterparts in the development of an integrated forest protection system; and (ii) technical assistance to develop a federal and regional monitoring capacity by improving monitoring and information systems, improving information products and their use, improving links between stakeholders and responding to their specific needs, and training of staff and users.

1. Start-Up Phase

During December 1998 and January 1999 a number of familiarisation visits were made to Moscow, Irkutsk and St. Petersburg to get a realistic picture of the situation, meet Russian counterparts, potential local consultants, set up the initial infrastructure for the project and commence with the drawing up of a work plan as a basis for the inception report.

2. Inception Phase

The inception report provides the basis for a project’s implementation, its main elements being its overall work plan, time schedule and staffing plan. The inception report has to be approved by the European Commission in Brussels before a project can commence.

The tentative work programme and the distribution of tasks among European and local partners were presented to all counterpart organisations and local partners in a workshop held in Pushkino at February 8. The comments and suggestions of the Russian partners were then integrated into the work programme to form a common basis for the inception report and, consequently, the further implementation of the project.

In keeping with the European Commission’s guidelines and procedures, HTS and its partners finalised the inception report in February 1999 and submitted it to Brussels by March 1999 in compliance with the official deadline. Formal approval for the project to proceed was given by the European Commission at the end of March upon which the first tranche of money to implement the project was transferred to HTS.