Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, IR-97-54 /December, 1997. — 56 р.
IIASA, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Federal Forest Service, in agreement with the Russian Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, signed agreements in 1992 and 1994 to carry out a large-scale study on the Siberian forest sector. The overall objective of the study is to focus on policy options that would encourage sustainable development of the sector. The goals are to assess Siberia's forest resources, forest industries, and infrastructure; to examine the forests' economic, social, and biospheric functions; with these functions in mind, to identify possible pathways for their sustainable development; and to translate these pathways into policy options for Russian and international agencies. The _rst phase of the study concentrated on the generation of extensive and consistent databases for the total forest sector of Siberia and Russia. In its second phase, the study has encompassed assessment studies of the greenhouse gas balances, forest resources and forest utilization, biodiversity and landscapes, nonwood products and functions, environmental status, transportation infrastructure, forest industry and markets, and socioeconomics. This report, carried out by Dr. Victor Wagner of The Dokuchaev Soil Institute, Moscow, under the supervision of Profs. A. Shvidenko and S. Nilsson during his stay at IIASA in 1997, is a contribution to the analyses of the topic of mainly biodiversity. This work has been nancially supported by the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research.
