Joint conference of foresters was held in Slovakia (PHOTOS)

The international conference on the occasion of launching the project ‘Continuous Foresters Training for a better forest management’ was held in the city of Velki Sharish in Slovakia last week. The project was launched in the framework of the trans-border cooperation Hungary-Slovakia-Romania-Ukraine for 2007-2013. The territory of the project implementation: Transcarpathian and Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine, Kosice and Presov regions in Slovakia.

The main international partner of the project is the Transcarpathian public organization ‘Forza’. Lesia Loyko, a head of public organization agency of sustainable promotion of the Carpathian region ‘FORZA’ development, a chief project manager said: ‘Slovak partners were selected because this subject is interesting for them and for us, and together we can achieve results. We expect from the project firstly, improvement of forest institutions’ cooperation on border areas and foresters. Secondly, we want to use already existing experience of Slovakia with close to nature forestry (CNF) in order to prepare trainers who will teach this direction in Ukraine, – said Lesia Loyko. – CNF – is practice that began in the Ukraine and in particular in Transcarpathia not very long ago in 2005.

Milan Lalkovych, General Director of the National Forester Center of Slovakia, event organizer said that the program is aimed at permanent professional development of forestry employees. ‘This project will be the basis for the further cooperation between regions, even after its termination,’ – said Milan Lalkovych.

According to Serhiy Irkliyenko, a director of Ukrainian Centre qualification improvement of forestry personnel ‘UKRTSENTRKADRLIS’ the branch specialists once in five years are obliged to pass training. More than 50,000 foresters studied there on 26-specialization for 42 years of the Centre’s existence.

The representatives from the Slovak Republic, in their turn, talked about the education system in their country.

After the conference the Ukrainian delegation visited the territory of Presov timber – Forestry Hanushovtse. Slovak colleagues talked about structure of the timber and major milestones of farming.

There are 24 of them in the country. Forestry in Presov is one of the largest one on the area – 68 thousand 500 hectares (42% of the forest cover). 45 thousand hectares are located in hands of the state, others – in private.

In general, the foundation for further cooperation was established by the delegations. The project will work for 24 months. The representatives of both organizations were able to get acquainted and establish business relationships. Also, the participants voted for the candidates of the supervisory board (3 representatives from Ukraine and 3 from the Slovak Republic).