Rector of VSUFT Mikhail Drapalyuk presented the carbon landfill of the Voronezh region in the Federation Council

On February 28, parliamentary hearings on the topic "The role of forestry in achieving carbon neutrality in Russia" were held in the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation under the chairmanship of Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Agriculture and Food Policy and Environmental Management Vladimir Lebedev via videoconference. Legislative support: problems and solutions".

The event was attended by senators of the Russian Federation, Deputy Head of the Federal Agency for Forestry Alexander Panfilov, Chairman of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on Natural Resources Management and Ecology Sergey Alekseev, representatives of regional executive authorities, public organizations, scientific and expert communities.

The Voronezh Region was represented by Vyacheslav Orobinsky, Deputy Head of the Forestry Department, Mikhail Drapalyuk, Rector of the Voronezh State University of Forestry and Technologies named after G.F. Morozov.

During the hearings, the issues of creating a national carbon monitoring system in forests, measures of state support for the development of forestry and verification of the domestic system for assessing the absorption of greenhouse gases by forests, as well as domestic experience in creating carbon farms and landfills were considered.

On behalf of the Government of the Voronezh Region, Mikhail Valentinovich made a report "The creation of a carbon landfill on the lands of the forest fund. Experience, prospects, problems".

- The existing Rules of reforestation, the composition of the reforestation project, the procedure for developing a reforestation project and making changes to it No. 1014 do not provide for the possibility of implementing forest climate projects at all. These operational tasks for the regulation of the legislative framework must be solved first of all," Mikhail Drapalyuk noted the key problems of the implementation of forest carbon projects.

Recall that as part of the support for the project to create a carbon landfill, on June 8, 2021, a trilateral agreement on cooperation in scientific, technical and innovative fields was signed between the University, the Government of the Voronezh Region and the subsidiary of PJSC SIBUR Holding - JSC Voronezhsintezkauchuk. An experimental calibration range with an area of 0.3 hectares is designed to select promising forest tree species from the position of greenhouse gas deposition. Currently, the main forest-forming species promising for the arid region of the central forest-steppe are being studied: pine, birch, poplar, oak.

During the first year of operation of the landfill, it was possible to establish the leading tree varieties. Thus, during the first year of vegetation, the total phytomass of the by-growing poplar variety E.s.-38 exceeded the phytomass of other poplar varieties by an average of 8 times. 150 thousand pine seedlings, 180 thousand birch seedlings were grown in a smart greenhouse for planting at the carbon landfill of VSUFT, more than 10 thousand cuttings of fast-growing poplars of their own selection were harvested.

By 2025, the area of the created target plantings will be increased to 2000 hectares with a total absorption potential of at least 320 thousand tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases. Already today, 150 thousand pine seedlings, 180 thousand birch seedlings have been grown in a smart greenhouse for planting at the carbon landfill of VSUFT, more than 10 thousand cuttings of fast-growing poplars of their own selection have been harvested.