Fungi on dead wood.

The idea of the project is to protect last remnants of old oaks forests by mechanism of protection of Red List species which are living there. Such natural oak forests are poorly represented among pine plantations of Kyiv Polissya and mostly belong to “exploitative” forests due to commercial value.

Therefore, most of such forests will be clearly cut in a short run. However, old-growth oak woodlands are the unique habitat for species incorporated into The Red List of Ukraine. Ukrainian laws are able to protect areas with presence of such species, but no actual data on their presence are available. We are going to fill in this gap and conduct research of such forests in order to identify location of Red List species and to protect them. Our targets species will be threatened bats, insects, plants, fungi and birds. Obtained data will be provided for state forests enterprises and other forestry authorities, responsible for forest conservation. State forests enterprises have to provide forest management with consideration of presence of threatened species and requirements for their protection. As one of main reason of our target species extinction is clear cutting, one of requirements of their protection is prohibition of such type of logging. In this way we plan to exclude high valuable forests from cutting plans. Moreover, poster about values of oak forests will be developed and shared through state forest enterprises and other stakeholders for environmental education goal.