BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

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Belarusians visit refuge to study park management

By Jim Cresson

Cape Gazette staff

A delegation of Belarusian environmental scientists, park managers and interpreters recently spent four hours at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, studying land management techniques they can use back home.

Visiting the United States to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience this country firsthand, the delegation was greeted by Prime Hook Refuge manager Jonathan Schafler, who took the Belarusian delegation for an hour-long airboat ride through the marshes and woodland streams of the 10,000-acre refuge.

Midway through the ride, Schafler invited Dr. Alexander Kosulin to take the controls and drive the airboat over the marsh. Kosulin proved his skills at handling the boat adeptly.

Kosulin, scientific director of APB-Birdlife, in Minsk, Belarus, proved his expertise in bird identification, as he was the only person aboard the airboat who recognized a group of six large, swept-wing black-and-white birds, spotted on a refuge impoundment pond.

"Skimmers," Kosulin announced, using his first and second fingers to show how the birds' beaks open when they skim the water's surface for food. The species was unknown to Schafler, and its presence in the United States surprised Kosulin.

Schafler said later that the visiting future leaders of Belarus were interested in how public lands are managed here. "They were especially interested in water-level management, public relations and how to deal successfully with private landowners neighboring the refuge. I admitted I am no expert on that last issue," Schafler said.

Valery Dranchuk, publisher and editor of "Bielaviezhskaya Pushcha" in Minsk, told a reporter he is very interested in shedding light on the ongoing harvesting of mature trees at environmentally important public parks in Belarus. He said many people in his homeland believe the government is harvesting the trees for profit. But he said the government maintains the trees are being felled to stop the advance of forest-killing beetles.

"We are trying to protect a national park that is a world heritage site," said Dranchuk. "We asked the United Nations to come observe the situation. They came, but they have not made any official report. We're struggling to get international experts to act as third-party independent observers. We do not believe the government, and we cannot allow that park to be destroyed."

As the delegation prepared to leave the refuge, Schafler asked them what they liked about their tour at Prime Hook. They responded, almost in unison: "Everything."

In addition to Kosulin and Dranchuk, the delegation included Henadzi Dudko, deputy director of the Belarusian Research Institute of Land Management, Geodesy and Cartography; Alexandre Vintchevski, director of the APB-Birdlife Belarus; Dr. Valentin Yatsukhno, head of the Landscape Ecology Lab at Belarusian State University; and Juliya Slutskaya, editor in chief of BelKP Press in Minsk. Varvara Olson of the U.S. State Department and Vladimir Ferkelman, president of YMF Enterprises in Pacific Palisades, Calif., served as interpreters and translators for the delegates.

The group had toured Washington, D.C., prior to visiting the refuge. Their itinerary also includes tours of Jackson Hole, Wyo., Jacksonville, Fla., and Burlington, Vt., to continue studying parkland management.

The delegation was part of the International Visitor Leadership Program administered by the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and its Office of International Visitors. The program operates under authority of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961. Its emphasis is to increase mutual understanding through communication at the personal and professional levels.

Participants are established or potential foreign leaders in government, politics, media, education, science, labor relations and other fields. Many are selected by American embassies overseas.

Source:

http://www.capegazette.com/storiescurrent/0605/belarusians060305.html