Belarus, Russia to share digital forestry expertise

Forestry Minister Sergei Uldinovich emphasized that the experience of Russian colleagues in digitalizing the sector has always attracted considerable attention in Belarus. “You have moved ahead in the forestry digitalization, and we would be happy to adopt some of your technologies,” he said.

For his part, Vyacheslav Spirenkov, head of the Russian delegation, deputy head of the Federal Agency for Forestry of the Russian Federation, said that Russia plans to introduce technology for automatically measuring the volume of timber stacks. Belarus has already taken certain steps in this field. “We will be interested to learn from your experience,” Vyacheslav Spirenkov emphasized.

The Forestry Ministry noted that both countries are experiencing a shortage of personnel in the forestry sector. Active digitalization of the industry helps address the staffing shortage.

In Russia, all stages of work in forests are recorded digitally, with the active usage of drones. Russian forestry specialists have about 3,000 drones in service. “We are striving to use them to fully replace aerial and foot patrols of forests. We also use mobile devices to monitor reforestation, use neural networks to combat Sosnowsky’s hogweed, detect illegal dumps in forests and carry out other activities,” the Russian colleagues said.

Over the next few days, the delegation of Russian forestry specialists will learn about the experience of national organizations subordinate to the Forestry Ministry and visit a number of forestry institutions in Grodno Oblast.