Institute of Forest SB RAS is the first academic institution of forest profile in our country. It was founded in 1944 in Moscow by an outstanding ecologist academician Vladimir Nikolayevich Sukachev. The institute was named after him in 1967. In 1959 the Institute was joined in Siberian Branch of Academy of Sciences of the USSR and transferred to Krasnoyarsk.
Institute of Forest SB RAS is the largest forest-biological institution in Russian Academy of Sciences. Its staff consists of 160 researchers, 40 professors and 90 doctors of sciences including. Among them there are 3 Honoured scientists of RF and 4 Honoured foresters of RF. More than 60 people are taking Ph.D. course on series of forest specialities: forest science, forestry, forest management, forest inventory, sylvicultures, forest pyrology, genetics and selection, ecology, botany, forest soil science, entomology, microbiology, phisiology and biochemistry of wood plants, bioinformatics. From 1947 to 2003 at the Institute 140 prominent foresters have defended their highest level. A part of them were then elected members of Academy of Sciences.
Since 1947 the Institute has been a collective member of International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), since 1991 it has entered International Association of Boreal Forests Researchers.
The library of the Institute is a depository of scientific literature on forest themes for regions of Siberia and Far East. It makes up more than 150 thousand units of storage. The readers of the library (550 people) are not only employees of the institute but also lecturers, Ph.D. students and university students.
The structure of the Institute provides development of fundamental and applied research in a wide range: biospherical role, ecological functions and biodiversity of forest ecosystems, monitoring of their condition, rational usage of forest resources, ecosystem forest management.
SYLVICULTURE DEPARTMENT: Forest science laboratory, Laboratory of forest genetics and selection, Laboratory of inventory and forest utilization, Laboratory of forest pyrology, Sector of artificial forest phytocoenoses.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MONITORING DEPARTMENT: Forest monitoring laboratory, Laboratory of biogeocoenology, Laboratory of forest soil science, Laboratory of forest zoology, Laboratory of forest biophysics.
DEPARTMENT OF DENDROCLIMATOLOGY AND FOREST HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL-CHEMICAL BIOLOGY AND WOOD BIOTECHNOLOGY
WEST- SIBERIAN DEPARTMENT OF THE INSTITUTE (city of Novosibirsk)
The scientific schools formed at the Institute: taiga forestry and productivity of forests, permafrost forestry, inventory and forest exploitation, forest morphology, cartography, aerospace information usage, forest genetics and selection, pyrology, zoology, microbiology, physiology and biochemistry of wood plants, dendroecology and dendroclimatology and other spheres of forest-biological science are the basis for mutual investigations with the scientists of the USA, Canada, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Belorussia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Japan, China, Korea, Mongolia. In 1992 there has been founded Siberian International Center of Ecological Research of Boreal Forests which favours the participation of employees in foreign grants, projects, programs including the problems of climate changes, atmosphere gas composition and biodiversity.
In different landscape-ecological conditions on the territory of Siberia a net of basic research field stations to carry out experimental work and durable monitoring of forest ecosystems function was created.
Availability of experts of various profiles at the Institute makes it possible to estimate scientific and applied forest problems. So, in the 1960s a complex research of mountain Siberian pine forests of Siberia was finished by development of «Guiding principal» on forest management in them. In it for the first time the primary significance of forestforming functions of this forest formation and their hydrology role in particular was stressed.
In the activities of the Institute a great place is taken by investigations in the forests of lake Baikal started on the initiative of academician A. B. Zhukov yet in early 1970s. The developed approaches regulate exploitation of the region forests. They scientifically ground monitoring of forest exploitation. It is proved by regional evaluation scale of reforestation evaluation, by landscape approach to location of wood-cutting areas and by rating of technogenic load on the ground. This provides the level of ecological security corresponding to legislation of RF on lake Baikal protection and UNESCO requirements to the objects of World heritage.
For a number of years the Institute has been developing application methods of remote sensing information coming from aeroplanes and satellites to estimate condition of forest cover of taiga zone under the impact of anthropogenic and natural factors. Under the leadership of academician A. S. Isaev in 1970-1980 there was worked out a system of aerospace information analysis. It includes standard polygons on which on-ground and remote information was compared. Forest territories were differentiated on natural basis, experimental research of interaction of electromagnetic radiations with typical forest vegetation was made. Real expression of these investigations became a thematic cartography of resourcefully perspective regions, compilation of forest fund maps.
Continuation of this work nowadays is development of technique of forest inventory and morphology structure investigation on the basis of laser, digital photo and video survey, digital satellite survey and three-dimensional taxational computer analysis of images. On its basis regularities of forest structure and dynamics of phytomass in plantations forming after fires and cuttings were found out.
Two receiving and analyzing satellite information stations available at the Institute make it possible to estimate ecological information in actual time in the interests of various institutions.
In cooperation with foreign scientists the Institutes is working out the system approach to forest management with the help of GIS technologies and databases characterizing the main components of forest ecosystems. On the basis of modern techniques of receiving and analysis of scientific information estimation of ecological condition of forests in the zones of huge technogenic impact (oil-gas complex of West Siberia, Norilsk industrial region) is carried out.
In two arboretums of the Institute for more than 30 years about 450 species, subspecies and forms of trees and bushes from different botanico-geographical regions have been investigated. Their acclimatization, growth and development in new conditions are estimated to select perspective species for planting of greenary in towns and other settlements.
Long-term investigations of Siberian forests are reflected in more than 450 books and collections of papers of the Institute researchers. The information about features of forest forming process contained in them is widely used by Russian and foreign scientists and design organizations. On its basis normative documents (rules, directions, recommendations) regulating the main forest production works in Siberia have been developed by the Institute.
