The stay of the Italian wasp in the Caucasus is recognized as legal
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Rosprirodnadzor failed to bring the management of the Sochi National Park to responsibility for violating the security regime of a specially protected natural area (SPNA) when using biological methods to combat a dangerous pest – chestnut nut wasp. In the spring of 2021, the specialists of the national park released the Italian osu torimus, a natural enemy of the gall wasp, into the natural environment. Rosprirodnadzor fined the FGBU 300 thousand rubles. for violating the ban on the introduction of living organisms into protected areas. However, the court overturned this decision, referring to the impossibility of using other methods of destroying the pest in the national park.
Chestnut gall washer, along with boxwood moth and oak laceworm, is considered the most dangerous invasive pest of the Caucasus ecological system. The nutworm was first identified in the south of Russia in 2016: the pest appeared on the territory of the Sochi National Park, as well as on the lands of the forest fund. In all chestnut tracts, the total area of which is 22 thousand hectares, a quarantine regime was introduced. However, this did not stop the spread of the pest, which affected more than half of the planted area of this tree.
In April 2021, the Sochi National Park announced that torimus, an insect imported from Italy that feeds on the nut wasp, was released into the chestnut habitat. The nutworm lays its eggs on the petioles of chestnut leaves, the larva forms around itself a gall with a hard shell. And the small wasp torimus is the only insect whose larvae penetrate the shell and eat the larvae of the gall wasp. A few months later, Rosprirodnadzor conducted an inspection and concluded that the Federal State Budgetary Institution violated the law “On Specially Protected Natural Territories”, which prohibits the introduction of living organisms in order to acclimatize them in national parks. In addition, the supervisory authority referred to the opinion of experts that the resettlement of torimus can lead to difficult to predict, including extremely negative, consequences for the ecosystem.
The environmental department fined the national park for 300 thousand rubles. under Art. 8.39 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (violation of the rules for the protection and use of natural resources in specially protected natural areas). The FGBU challenged the sanctions. The Lazarevsky District Court of Sochi canceled the decision of the Southern Interregional Directorate of Rosprirodnadzor, agreeing with the argument that the entomophage was used after receiving the conclusion of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Forestry about the absence of other ways to combat invasive species within the boundaries of protected areas. Thus, the National Park complied with the requirement of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation to coordinate its actions with a specialized scientific institution. The Krasnodar Regional Court upheld this decision.
The press service of the Southern Interregional Directorate of Rosprirodnadzor, as well as the Sochi National Park Federal State Budgetary Institution, did not respond to Kommersant’s request.
Aleksey Bobrinsky, associate professor at the Institute for Advanced Training of Forestry Managers, says that such a method of carrying out preventive measures in forests is enshrined in law and codified. However, he says, they resort to it very rarely because of its complexity and high cost: “It is very difficult to find the right species, create an artificial population and release it into nature so that it does not die.” WWF Russia (recognized as a foreign agent) says that invasive species are dangerous because it is impossible to predict how they will affect the ecosystem in which they appear. The Foundation reminds that Sochi already knows a similar example: during the preparations for the Olympic Games, along with plant seedlings, they brought a butterfly moth, which destroyed the boxwood not only in this region, but also in neighboring ones, including the boxwood in the Yew-Boxwood Grove in the Caucasian reserve. In Adygea, for example, they fought against moth with the help of the biological material “Biostop” and with the help of an entomophage – a Chinese eulophid.
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