Introduction

One of the basic tasks to be solved by the GMFA administration on the first stage of its activity was to conduct an inventory of all the natural resources and uses of the forest in the territory of the GMFA. Also, to design projects such as: organizing and conducting forest and game management, area studies for artificial and natural reforestation, effective placing of watershed communities and other protected forests, designing a system for sustainable integrated forest use and increasing forest productivity, increasing the forest protection level, evaluation of quantity and quality of aquatic and wetland resources, designing a system for the protection of rare plant and animal species, and monitoring of state and conditions of forest and water ecosystems based on GIS and biological indicators. Implementation of these projects will promote the improvement of living standards for the residents of the GMFA, including the indigenous people.

To solve the above tasks, the designing and scientific institutions were enlisted, such as the Far East State Enterprise for Forest Inventory (Lesproject), Far East Research Forestry Institute, Institute for Aquatic and Ecological Issues, Far East Affiliation of All-Russia Game Management and Fur-breeding Institute, and also universities of Khabarovsk and other cities of the Far East and Russia.

The first stage of activity of the GMFA covered 3 years (1994-1997). During these years wide-scale studies have been conducted, including: forest and game inventory, GIS mapping, rare and endangered plant and animal species in the Red Data Book in the GMFA, the condition of major forest insect pests and the genetic fund of basic forest-producing species. A computer model for simulating forest fire propagation and suppression has been created for predicting forest fire behavior and making suppression plans.

To this point, the unique science data have been collected, describing the territory of the GMFA, and its natural and labor resources. This scientific data is used for development of norms and quotas of harvesting and taking of various natural resources, and business plans for establishment of enterprises for production and processing of raw materials, and marketing of the final products. The raw materials are not only those obtained from trees (timber, birch bark for tar production, oil extracted from conifer foliage, cedar pine nuts), but also non-wood products (mushrooms, berries, fern, wild garlic, medicinal plants, peat and matters extracted from peat), game products, and recreation.