Humanitarian Environmental Magazine. Vol. 1. Is. 2. 1999. P. 72-83.

AESTHETICAL PROTECTION OF FORESTS AND FOREST MANAGEMENT

I.I. Yatsenko

The Forest Journal, 1917

Forests, equally with sea, mountains and desert make up one of the most grandiose and elemental displays of nature. They make their influence on the physical development and behavior of people, their epos, religion, not to mention the significance they always had and have now in the economic life.

Russia has two opposite attitudes to the forest: on one hand there is an obvious love to it, on the other hand – the most active predation. This internal contradiction is explained by the very popular idea of inexhaustible richness of our forests. And although the modern forest management supports in theory some aesthetical attitude to the forest, the aesthetical theory of forest management is developed very weakly, and the Russian practice usually does not take into account the necessity of introducing the aesthetical ideas to the life of the forest.

There are two main basics of aesthetics, applicable every time and everywhere: the first one says that the beauty given by nature as its supreme and the most fine gift should be conserved and protected by all means; the second says that the beauty should be created by the mean of artistic creativity in the places where there is no natural beauty. These general basics of aesthetics can and should be applied to the forest by the mean of forest management.

Thus, first of all the forest management can take a grateful task of conservation of the most beautiful and rare nature sites that can be found in the forest. The forest territories and even selected trees, recognized as having certain aesthetical value, should be undoubtedly excluded from the economic plans. The conservation of such territories for ever will have great educational significance, developing love for nature and beauty.

In the forest management there is a close connection between aesthetics and the problem of conservation of so-called "nature monuments". What is a nature monument? It is a part of a primitive virgin wood, all that is left from the far old days.

Now let us discuss the second basic of aesthetics in the forest management, namely – creation of beauty in the forest by the mean of creative and cultural activity. First of all the aesthetical theory can be applied with the forest cultivation. We should consider introducing into the sowing or planting a small percentage of foreign species able to acclimatize themselves as one of the ways of aesthetical activity.

For the aesthetics to develop from the academic wishes to the realty its main regulations should be included in the forest management instruction. The sooner the state forest management soaks the aesthetical spirit the more it will be able to do for the conservation of natural beauty of our forests and nature monuments.

The conservation of nature monuments and separation from the general economic areas such places whose beauty and location make them worth organizing state nature parks, recreation places, forest health centers, etc. – this is the main practical purpose that forest management can achieve.