PRAGUE, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Czech Ministry of Agriculture plans to pay up to 2.5 billion crowns (about 110 million U.S. dollars) to non-state forest owners to mitigate the impact of bark beetle calamity in forests. The new subsidy program has been approved by the government Tuesday.
The ministry will release 1.5 billion crowns for this year and another 1 billion crowns at the beginning of next year.
"Prices of coniferous wood from calamity logging have fallen significantly over the past two years. Therefore, forest owners do not have the money for forest regeneration and subsequent care, so the subsidy should partially compensate them for losses, so that they have sufficient funds necessary to ensure proper forest management," said Miroslav Toman, Minister of Agriculture
Despite a significant fall in the price of timber, forest owners are obliged by law to continue to harvest the infected trees in order to protect the forest from further spread of pests. Statistics from the ministry show that the volume of timber from all calamity logging was 23 million cubic meters in 2018. Bark beetle calamity could reach up to 50,000 hectares of forest, or 2 percent of the total forest area in the Czech Republic.
