The state-owned enterprise Lisy Ukrainy plans to implement more than 60 projects for the construction and reconstruction of forest roads with a total length of more than 200 km in 2026, the company’s press service reported.
“Only paved roads can ensure stable production in any season. Our investment plan is aimed at ensuring energy independence and uninterrupted timber supplies, especially during the spring mud season, which usually paralyzes traffic on dirt roads,” the state-owned enterprise wrote on its Facebook page.
According to the plan, the largest number of facilities are planned in the Carpathian (19), Polissya (15), and Capital (11) forest offices. New construction is also planned in the Northern, Podolsk, and Central regions. The projects involve the creation of roadways and the construction of intermediate warehouses for the storage, sorting, and shipment of forest products.
As an example of the economic effect, the company cited the Ozernyansky Forestry (Ivano-Frankivsk region), where, thanks to the new road, the annual harvest will increase from 15,000 cubic meters to 17,000 cubic meters. In the Zhubrovitsa Forestry (Zhytomyr region), construction will allow 1,000 hectares of the Forest Fund, which were previously only accessible during periods of frost or drought, to be used for economic activities.
In addition to production indicators, the projects have social significance. In particular, in the Lyuboml district of Volyn, a new road between the villages of Borove and Sokol will shorten the route for local residents by 15 km, which will significantly facilitate logistics and access to firewood.
CONSTRUCTION, forest roads, Forests of Ukraine, RECONSTRUCTION
The State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine will create an atlas of forest roads of Ukraine, a pilot project of mapping of transport infrastructure of individual forestries in the Carpathian region will soon be implemented.
As Yuriy Bolohovets, the Head of Department informed, the development of atlas is necessary because the existing forest road maps are outdated and not always correspond to reality, so it is not possible to drive on many of the roads marked on them.
“To date, it has been decided to create “Atlas of forest roads of Ukraine” in the future. In the nearest future a pilot project of transport development of a separate forestry will be realized. All existing forest roads, which can be used by a forest car, will be mapped and a network of routes for forest roads construction in the future will be designed,” – the Head of Department wrote in Facebook on Tuesday.
He also reminded that the inventory process of forest transportation network was initiated by the State Forestry Agency 11 years ago, when they issued an order on the introduction of geographic information systems for registration and inventory of forest roads. However, this system accounted mainly for newly constructed roads.
Bolokhovets noted that Ukraine’s need for the construction of new roads is estimated at thousands of kilometers per year, while in fact hundreds of kilometers of roads are built and repaired annually.
“In recent years, maintenance and construction of new roads has been carried out mainly at the expense of forestry enterprises, based on the financial status of each of them. Therefore, the volume of new roads leaves much to be desired. For example, 240 kilometers of forest roads were built, repaired and reconstructed in 2020. In 2021, 131 km of roadbed was built and 161 km of roadbed was arranged. Construction this year continues, but the volume is also small. The need is much more, “- summed up the head of the State Forestry Agency.
