Impacts And Management Of Forest Fires In The Republic Of Sakha, Russia: A Local Perspective For A Global Problem

The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which constitutes the northeastern parts of Siberia, holds the largest area of forest coverage among all the Russian federal subjects, and forest fires in its land exert significant impacts on the global environment. This paper aims to offer a local perspective for the globally important problem of Siberian forest fires, discussing the general patterns and trends of forest fires in Yakutia, their public management system, and their local impacts. State statistical data show a decrease in the frequency of fires but an apparent increase in burned areas in recent decades in Yakutia - for example, from the period 1985?1994 to the period 2005?2014, the average number of fires decreased by 17%, while their average area increased by 73%. These changes reflect transitions of local socioeconomic and political conditions over the last few decades, such as urbanization, the post-Soviet restructuring of the public forest management system, budget scarcity and declining trends of forestry activities. These factors are also likely to be an important determinant for the future trends of forest fires in Siberia, in combination with the effects of global climate change.