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we've done the future covered. hello again on the walk i'm to spotlight the interview show on our take i'll be real and today my guest is alex c. he had a show. last year their record drought unseen wildfires to russia flames destroyed words villages and killed dozens of people we weeks in august moscow and many other cities were covered with thick snow the press and public blamed the conditions on the state forest products so will russia get a breath of fresh air this year here's the head of his greenpeace russia part of the truculent aleksey russia. the wildfires of last summer destroyed almost

two million acas of forest and two and a half thousand homes in russia the government was forced to spend more than five hundred million dollars to stinkiest buyers and build new houses after the fall countdown officials say they learned the lessons and would not happen again in the summer has not yet begun the forests in siberia far east are already growing. thank you very much for being with us thanks welcome to the show well first of all as early as last spring two thousand and ten green has predicted that the the the wildfires in two thousand. urban may be as strong as devastating as a year ago what was that prediction based on actual predicted the large forest fires in two thousand and six already with the in coming years we will have

a lot of forest fires so what do you base the waste on the new forest previously from the. abolished the forest guards about one hundred thousand people who were responsible for what is guarding and among them there were. seven clear thousand people who were responsible for particular parts of the forests and the name of these people were listening. and now they are bullish forrester is not forrester is the. it's the specialist for some professional education usually higher education but listening. for his guards particular for his guard this these people were. in russia about three hundred years ago and survived until two thousand so one. no such person as a for our existence here is exactly such

a profession doesn't exist in russia and we have about sixteen thousand people who are responsible to some extent for forest. gardening but these people are mostly. office people who work or even now he says oh no they know this new forest co the new legislation was adopted in russia in two thousand and six he said yes yes so you said that it abolished some profession little knowledge some some services if. concerning the care for us in this country but what other results of this new legislation was it all negative what was there something something of the mystic about this code. there. there's nothing to. this court only two thousand and six into this was a really clear position of forest professional and environmental professionals who said that it was not possible all of the off this forest called it not only

abolished forest guards it's also created the situation when the forest management . can see what is management companies the. old ways to be economically viable they cannot survive. more than two hundred thousand people work you can state forest management system in russia before the new forest league is legion and now we're here while fifty thousand people including those. sixteen thousand toward a sponsible for. some of the restrictive things so if there's nothing a person is to can also does that mean that the people who adopted this legislation of the people who were dead knew for a gold medal for those insights are anti forests that they wanted to could to to to cause harm to russian forests entered into russian economy to russian environ is that so what were they wanted to do something good will just didn't succeed it was

a mistake or was it on purpose how did that happen this is still discussed among foreigners first and biologists and what is the world or was it on purpose or this was a mistake my personal opinion is that it was rather mistreat them poor birds people who made this new for a school day were too far from foreigners too far from reality they only thought that if a world made very very simple rules. then it will be perfect for for everybody but these rules were not really very far from being professional well there was this disaster last year when people well people were suffocating in cities like master for example. well i was lucky to get him to take my family away from the city but if my family the rest of their father stayed here in moscow i mean i mean this is we thought we're going to die well there's still deficit conditioning or things like that b.p. people want to put them everywhere they can in the country houses and in every room

of their apartment well the government said it was a mistake so do you think something is the good the mistakes would not be repeated this year the government says yes what do you say i think the situation became worse than it was one year ago. you will be remembered this. will want to me. as usual so this is what we have no. government decided that we. have to reestablish. and formally or we the this so the new version of what is called that was changed in december last year says that there are some people who are responsible for for his garden he actually these are people who seem sixty two thousand people who are responsible for many many other things mostly for the people making it important

and so on so they have no time at all doing some sort of gardening or draw it surely there are no people no new people in forest who can hear about all deforestation so there's nobody actually in the field in their words practical in your body as there are a few people in there in the woods and fields and most of the tourists. making fires and colorist making for ascent also. product is that started may be fifteen or twenty years ago or something created these extensive grass fires in spring and this is really harmful practice. mortal fires that we already have now in russia they started from that is this grass government. all this clothes bring this is this is strange many people say russia is different from other countries and one of the differences is that every spring soon as soon as the snow melts people and these are local officials they start burning grass

a large large territories yet last year's grass is being burned out why did they do there will be years in the world is that. exactly i have seen a large scale grass were new. but there are. many african countries there are levels of radiation to burn grass but the biggest part of the world there's not a tradition in world to do that does it make any sense to burn the grounds it may cause fires day does course get settled for a leader and i would see really it's not a common sense people things that if the world were all grass then they will clean the land and the new grass will appear sooner and this is maybe the initial reason but during the last. several more reasons appear for example from people in militias the thing that i will start a fire that will come from my own religion or another one. of those who are

dividing or come to my view and then all thought foresters i'm going to cultural people they also started to burn grass for example from from the forest just to prevent coming fire into the forest from the heat which everybody starts and tries to make fire earlier than he is. and this lead them to the fact that according to our wisdom asian from forty to fifty million secures this is a clue she is being burned in your ear you know work i did was cause for a. first for good does cause fire again always to mission is that all it did this year but in good grass fires course the old one million who experience a forest fire. and it's really the desire to do it with brutalizing the sort of the nothing new at least in humid climates in our climate that we have here has nothing of it. and in the other question i wanted to ask. for just one more thing when i

read this the papers telling us about the reform about the new code they say we're allocating new money where money is going directly to the for the people responsible for the forests only they will give the money but is the money actually reaching the local level of the grassroots them there are two problems first problem is that before. two thousand he went to new forest called came in force completely the forestry was self financing from eighty to ninety percent or for money that were used forestry organizations they were they came from the forest play operations from budget and now practically all the money have to come from budget with a new system so if the sale for financing for forty studies actually destroyed and this means if for example budget please. experiencers

for forests when is meant for maybe fifty or sixty percent if it was done this year big can of car would they get that after the new forest and this is the first problem another second problem is that the government give a lot of money for new m d fire equipment but they decided not to government by the fiddle forest agency decided the better to give this money for plan b. it is used for writing we pass through it fires and. we think that it is not good strategy because what is important to prevent fire. or fight fire when it is really small but if for instance we'll have only this man that is used after the fire became very big and expensive. we will not help in

majority of cases what is what is this equipment to to extinguish small fires this is just a normal thing stigma she wears north extinguishers they're not used for three years but. i mean normal they see different ways to mature but there are so called fire for destroys the machine like a like a big back for water with some sprinkle that is used by one person or. parts for water and they are not really hated they can be transported with a little small cars and when you talk about behind the equipment you mean airplanes that are going on the old bulldozers so they are something like this year's a very. fire machines says i let's see here i shall go the head of the greedy piece russia for a total it will be back shortly will continue this interview with less than a minute so stay with us there.

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back to spotlight. just a reminder that were a guest in the studio today is. the head of the greenpeace russia forest department we're talking about the devastating fires that happened in this country crossed the world ground that. are our continent and now this last year and it's already happening this year you predicted it like a couple of years ago and it is happening it's happening again this year it's happening it's happening in siberia in the far east already likely not in the not in the western hemisphere but in the eastern hemisphere so is the scale of these fires already comparable to what happened last year and is it going to spread to the west the scale is comparable with regional fires that were last year for example. about three hundred thousand population know we scoured which

small curb the same extensional small group would have been more school last year and it happens for a second the orderly did not work of night anyway the city is called wood smoke or forest fires around here called screws really really big saw a wrist immediately it see the half million the earth in one or only one region here. but generally now in siberia here some brie would put in four years because the season of grass fires that started the. majority of forest fires it's now coming. in the. season of forest fires the early tours are the reasons will start where you being june june july in june or july a centimeter of the engine well last year as we mentioned earlier today we we we had this heat wave we had an unprecedentedly heart. weather but this year the

weather is normal so what's the reason for the fires this year just this one human there is a i mean one fire is tourist so what you actually have a drop in the republic of you that is not maybe not comparable but that that has occurred last year but the strong drop but the main reason is not brought about unsafe behavior of population. mostly of bright progress great majority i think that ninety nine percent of for fires forest fires that were here before now in two thousand and eleven they started from grass fires and second reason is that we still have no. actual forest guarding system there are no people who can care about divisiveness in the climate change is

sometimes mentioned in one of the one of the reasons of the creasing number of fires to which extent can we blame the clothes change for the first i think that climate change definitely had. something i think a lot of the fire unsafe in our country but not only very clear by increasing cough drop period sent him pitcher but also by. killing some forest through by increase or for amount of bark beetles so we were now clear for strong outbreak of bali beetle in spruce forest around moscow and this maybe not lead to. some big problems with twice if you could this year but differently it will lead to big problems next year and well you mentioned people the that are one of the main reasons. people pee in people's carelessness people close by. pavia with all

of the human factor so is there a lot to be done to to make people more aware to police awareness of people in this country. i am sure that a lot should be done to increase people awareness and also there are many mistakes that done by state for what one of the beast mistakes is really at grass fires for example our washable forest agency ordered regional forest services to worm more than two million clears of dry grass along forests to prevent. fires that are not under control but it surely they can not use it all as billy was a religious thing so not only religious not on any and not not in the nose and not want to also bureaucratic in this in this world and can prevent a larger fires but actually they have no people to keep it under control two

million years of grass fires this is one and second is that they make a kind of propaganda of grass fires because people they see that forest was born. fires grass fires been largely cultural people they are born grass to clean whence we need to pull people be born grass and then people in villages they also start to think that we should born speaking about mistakes speaking their bureaucratic mistakes one of them is is. the irrigation program that was very intensive in the soviet union the most vicious wildfires are happening and people would not be a good idea to to start swamping them again this is a very good idea we support this idea in general of course but we understand that it cannot help in all cases for example in moscow region we have about two hundred thousand clears hold dr books. about all. only about it when sixty and seventy

thousand barrels can be swamped again because. they are populated there are some are going to cultural where that cannot be. litigated again this mean that before and for also are the solution this is one of forcible solutions the main one well actually the number of fires has been growing over cross world this year alone fears wildfires have already australia canada the united states and russia spotlights he has more on that. environmentalist blame it on the climate change and the rise of average temperatures to any given moment forest a brilliant somewhere in the world february so australia fighting wildfires in areas which were difficult to access except by dozens of homes were destroyed an

average of two million hectares burns every year in the united states last month wind whipped wise raged across texas which has seen its worst drought in decades the natural disaster has devastated areas this month it's been planted dozens of forest fires destroyed hundreds of homes and forced the evacuation of thousands russia which in due to worst heatwave in its recorded history last year is battling wildfires again this time in siberia and the far east a lot of volunteer fire brigades has been adopted in russia but experts say the legislation is imperfect as creation of a brigade means go through too much red tape in many other countries a volunteer firefighters. in the u.s. there are five times as many volunteers and professional firefighters.

the volunteers in russia what's the attitude towards volunteer firefighters in this country who's more efficient you mentioned trying to prevent and they're trying to put out the fire while they're still small so can professional help be of any use in this case. not enough volunteers firefighting calling here from the work granted by the volunteers or from professional aren't even more professional than people who work in image and image and so i mean it's true yes exactly but of cause and what i want to fall into yours is much smaller than it is needed. more than. a thousand small religious there are located too far from or firefighters from street firefighters and people cannot. assume as it is needed in this religion when they start to burn well we are we seeing one of those villages and people

they're just using buckets with water you know look at this guy he's a volunteer but he he just has a show that's it the do these people get those those small technological things as has special their special equipment instead of that you were talking about before not only just the buckets of water that we think that every village should be but some minimal equipment this is the normal approach but the lord was a great recently and started came in fourth only a few days ago. says that volunteers have to be here just that there's a. legal board you have to employ at least three professionals. like director. of driver they have to be professional so early and they hear. nor know of a machine really quick. if you live by the law only three and they have to

get a license for firefighting because every legal body has to get a license and this is the really complicated process to get a license and we think that for small. country communities it will not be possible to. volunteer firefighters this means that they will continue as we can see on these images. when it comes to extinguishing authority a local fire in a village in a far away village in canada in the united states is it different from russia or is it pretty much the same there on who you know that these you know i and i nor in all the years. they actually there are many differences even in canada there are many differences in. part of them in northern provinces and territories and we see that the problems of northern parts of japan about really really similar to the problems that we have and there are no enough people in forests and. this means

that when one forest fires started usually there are enough professionals to keep in the temple there's this fire but when many forest fires started the starts this means that there are not enough people to keep them from control and this is exactly what we have in our country so we're all in a one but thank you thank you very much for being with us and just a reminder that my guest today was telling see. the head of the greenpeace russia part of it and that's it for now from all of us here if you want tragic yourself spotlight or if you have someone in mind do you think i actually interview tomorrow they are in calgary got a party to guard our year and it's part of intra we will be back with more first on cannon fodder what's going on cain and profound question until then stay on r.t. and take.

all.