Knowledge Base

Here you can find Pavel Pashkov’s answers to the most frequently asked questions.

What is the 'Green Page' and why is it needed?How many bears are there in Russia overall?What are ancient forests?What are Public Initiatives and how do they help protect nature?What is the Concept of Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET) and how does it differ from the existing global protected area system?How do roads affect the integrity of the taiga?How can an ordinary person help wildlife?What do we need to do to have a global impact on environmental issues?Is it true that forests in Russia are only increasing?Why do bears approach humans, and is it related to pine nuts?Is it necessary to write to government authorities if the responses are just formalities?Why don't petitions to protect wildlife work?What do studies say about fires and roads?Why am I against planting forests in "rows" and critical of modern reforestation?Can the shooting of bears provoke new encounters between animals and humans?How should we protect nature to achieve real change?What threat has emerged for the reserves?They want to allow bears to be killed all winter during hibernationWhat do we propose to solve the problem?Interactive map of the Territories of Full Ecological Tranquility (TFET)How is the area of Russia's intact forest landscapes changing?Why bears and how is the register organized?Why do we need our online Earth observation station?How do ancient forests affect the climate?

How do ancient forests affect the climate?

Ancient forests play a crucial role in regulating the climate, maintaining humidity, and distributing precipitation. Russian scientists Anastasia Makarieva and Victor Gorshkov proposed the scientific model of the 'biotic pump,' which suggests that large natural forest areas can even influence the transport of atmospheric moisture from oceans into the interior of continents. How does this work? Trees absorb water from the soil and evaporate it through their leaves and needles. The moist air rises, cools, water vapor condenses, clouds form, and precipitation occurs. According to the scientists' model, intense condensation contributes to the formation of atmospheric pressure differences, which enhance the inflow of moist air from the ocean to the land. Thus, vast forest areas can sustain a steady supply of moisture deep into the continents. In a study from 2007, scientists showed that over large forest areas of the Amazon, equatorial Africa, and the Yenisei basin, abundant precipitation is maintained thousands of kilometers from the ocean. In the studied treeless areas, the amount of precipitation significantly decreased within just a few hundred kilometers. If ancient forests are destroyed, evaporation, water balance, and the redistribution of atmospheric moisture are disrupted. This can increase the aridity of areas and alter the regional climate. This is why preserving the intact expanses of the Ancient Forests is important far beyond the forests themselves. We are talking about natural systems on which the climate and water regime of vast areas depend.
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