Valezhnik

The formation of deadwood occurs during the natural death of trees, felling, forest fires, windfall, windbreak, snow breaker, snow cover, hardening (glaciation of the crown and trunk), damage to plantations by harmful insects, fungal diseases ^[2] .

Decomposed deadwood leaves nutrients in the soil. The micro-elevations formed by him create conditions for the self-renewal of valuable species ( spruce , fir , pine ). ^[3] Felling stands strengthens slopes, protects the soil. It is a permanent or temporary home for many inhabitants: microorganisms , fungi , arthropods , mollusks , amphibians and reptiles , birds and even small mammals . For the successful development of plants of certain species, it is necessary that their seeds germinate in deadwood.

Deadwood plays a significant role as a long-term carbon storage. For example, in coniferous forests in deadwood, together with soil, may contain up to 25-30% of the carbon stored in the forest ^[4] .

The accumulation of deadwood is very dangerous for the forest, as the deadwood, representing convenient food for fire, in the event of a forest fire, contributes to its rapid spread to large areas. In addition, it is a favorable environment for various harmful insects, especially bark beetles , which, propagating, pass from it to growing trees, often destroying tens and hundreds of thousands of hectares of valuable forest. Therefore, in a well-maintained forestry, special attention is paid to the timely removal of deadwood from the forest - its removal (the requirement of Article 168 of the Forestry Charter of the Russian Empire regarding state forests, as well as modern legislation of the RF Ministry of Natural Resources ^[5] ), and the state of deadwood is of decisive importance. Even in pre-revolutionary times, the issue of the benefits and harms of harvesting deadwood in forests was actively debated ^[6] .

It is harmful in fire and as a nursery of insects only at the beginning, in the first years of its existence, subsequently, with further decomposition of wood, it becomes harmless and its very removal from the forest then does not bring any benefit, but damage to the economy, in vain depriving the forest soil of natural fertilizer . But with all the desirability of the earliest possible cleaning of forest plantations from fresh felling , its cleaning can not always be done, due to the lack of demand for materials obtained from its development, and therefore the impossibility rotation of the costs made to clean it. In other cases, it is possible to help in this regard by introducing forestry industries - tarry, charcoal, cooking potash, etc., paying excess collection costs.

Germany

In Germany, on humanitarian grounds and forest conservation considerations, it was allowed free use of deadwood in state and some private forests by neighboring insolvent residents, subject to the conditions for evidence of insolvency and time of use. The collection of dead wood was allowed, for convenience of supervision, only on certain days and hours from sunrise to sunset, and it was forbidden to use iron tools, carting, or selling collected.

Russia

In the Forestry Statute of the Russian Empire, the location of the forest is no longer at its root and its lower value, compared with the growing one, is considered signs of felling . Deadwood was different from dry stand and windbreak ; for example, under article 410, for the conservation of state forests in the Stavropol province, it was forbidden from them to sell not only growing, but also deadwood, and private individuals were allowed to buy only felling . In the same way, in Article 282, former state peasants were allowed to use a certain number of trees separately from deadwood , dry-growing and windbreak forests for free . By allowing state property administrations to sell deadwood at a lower tax rate, which can only be done with respect to the growing forest with the permission of the minister, the law obviously considered deadwood to be of little value, although it allowed that, depending on its condition, only firewood , but also drill and ornamental forest .

In the Russian Empire, free use of deadwood from state-owned forest plantations was allowed only in exceptional cases, as a forest conservation measure to prevent or stop the damage caused by insects to the forest, or as a measure of assistance to the poor. So, in the lean year of 1891, the highest allowance (July 16) allowed non-cash leave of firewood and brushwood from dead wood to peasants of twenty provinces, subject to almost the same conditions as in Germany ^[7] .

The 2006 Forest Code of the Russian Federation for the collection of felled trees requires the conclusion of a contract of sale of forest stands, which made offenders a large number of citizens who freely collect felled trees ^[8] .

In April 2018, the legislation of the Russian Federation officially allowed Russians to collect deadwood for personal purposes from 2019 ^[9]

• Windbreak
• Firewood
• Wood

• Sobichevsky V.T. Valezhnik // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• "Regulation on the conservation of forests", 1888 .