22 December 2010 Bishkek (AKI) - National forest inventory of Kyrgyzstan has shown satisfactory results, announced at a press conference in agency "Kabar" Head of the Office of Environmental Monitoring and Forest inventory Venera Surappaeva. According to her, monitoring has shown that forests cover 5.6% of the country. "It has been defined forest area, and now we need to define their boundaries and ownership, who will manage them" - she said. "The next time we will through the inventory be able to evaluate the trends in increasing or decreasing forest area of the country", - she said. As noted by the State Secretary of the State Agency of Environment and Forestry Abdymital Chengozhoev, the national forest inventory was carried out during the last 2 years and it assessed not only the forest area, but also its quality and species composition. The inventory was not carried out by the “Soviet method” previously used, but new methods provided by donors (FAO). [more]

22 December 2010 Kabar, December 17, 2010. "Kyrgyzstan has completed a national inventory of forests", - said at a press conference in agency "Kabar" Mr Abdymital Chyngozhoev, State Secretary of the State Agency of Environment and Forestry of the Republic. According to him, this work was initiated in 2008 with the support of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Every 5 years in our country, we took into account forest on Soviet methods. But that method is outdated. This type of inventory is the first in the Central Asian region, and Kyrgyzstan is the first country to implement it and our people worked together on this. "This is a very big job. We wanted to get reliable data about our forests and we need to think about tomorrow's forest conservation "- said the State Secretary. As a result, the inventory showed 1,123,045.2 ha of forest in Kyrgyzstan (5,26%), of which 846,043.4 hectares (4.23%) were found in the territory of the State Forest Fund (SFF) and Protected Areas (PAs), while outside the territory of SFF and PAs - 277,001.8 hectares (1.39%) were found. Great concern over illegal felling of Christmas trees now just before the holidays was discussed, and according to A. Chyngozhoeva, permissions were given to two forest enterprises in Chui and Issyk-Ata, to provide firs for schools and kindergartens in Bishkek. "According to Forest law, the penalty shall be imposed on the length of harvested trees, "- said the head of the environmental monitoring and forest management Camille Ashimov. Note that the forest inventory system in Kyrgyzstan dates back to 1995, but as of 2008 it has evolved to 2-level system, (by analogy with European countries), to provide national level information through National Forest Inventory (NFI), in addition to the operational planning level of forest information (forest management plan inventory), (R. Almakunova). [more]