“Thickets of cow parsnip everywhere”: a sad forecast for Russia was announced

Fall on the whole world

“For five years we have been trying to destroy this infection in the Moscow region, so much money has already swelled, and at least he needs henna, it breeds at cosmic speed,” complain municipal officials in charge of hogweed, more precisely, in the fight against it in the Moscow region.

Rumor has it that it is the Moscow Region that is lobbying for the adoption of the federal law on invasive plants, which has been fighting Sosnovsky’s hogweed for 5 years, but things are still there; moreover, according to the statistics, it has become even worse. In 2018, when the Moscow region program was just beginning, the areas occupied by the noxious weed amounted to 32 thousand hectares, and now they occupy more than 43 thousand hectares. Experts explain this by the fact that hogweed is very tenacious and prolific, and it must be destroyed systematically and everywhere, and not in a single area, since its seeds easily overcome any borders, even state ones, not to mention administrative ones.

According to ecologists, hogweed seeds are heavy, so they will not fly far from the mother plant on their own. But on the other hand, they stick well to shoes, wheels of cars, they are carried by animals, and in winter the umbrellas of inflorescences, along with seeds, are carried by the wind over the ice crust for many kilometers around. They can sprout even after 10 years, and neither frost nor drought can help them – the germination of hogweed seeds is excellent. Therefore, even though in the Moscow region they spend big money on the fight against cow parsnip, there is zero sense in this. Indeed, in neighboring regions – in Tula, Yaroslavl, Tver and other regions adjacent to the Moscow region – it quietly grows, blooms and bears fruit.

It cannot be said that they do not fight him at all. But the scale is not the same. If in the Moscow region 300 million rubles are spent annually on weed control, then in the Perm Territory, which is the leader in terms of areas captured by a poisonous monster, this year they were going to allocate only 40 million rubles. However, other subjects of the federation do not have that kind of money to fight weeds.

There is a law, there is no order

It is assumed that amendments to the Land Code, which will spell out the responsibility of land owners for the spread of invasive plants, will be adopted before the end of this year, so that negligent owners will be fined throughout the country next year.

The size of the fine, for example, for legal entities can reach 700 thousand rubles, for the regions this is a lot of money. Nevertheless, skeptics argue that one should not particularly flatter oneself with the hope that after the adoption of the law, victory over hogweed will be ensured: in the Moscow region, fines are valid for 5 years, and there is no sense.

“It’s not enough to adopt a law, you also need to comply with it, and we always have big problems with this,” says Marina Osipova, a volunteer from Krasnogorsk. – Do you know how long it takes to knock on the thresholds of bureaucratic offices, how many times to write to Dobrodel before they respond to your application? Meanwhile, the cow parsnip will have time to win back a new territory for itself over the summer, and this is how it carries out its biological expansion.

However, officials have their own view of the problem. They believe that budget money should not be spent anywhere, everything needs a clear justification; and first of all they need to find out who is the owner of the land on which the weed is found. Sometimes it takes months or even years.

“We have a plan for hogweed, our area of ​​​​responsibility is indicated there, and there are areas assigned to road services, foresters and other departments, private traders must also monitor their territory, for example, the store owner must mow weeds around him and so on. Therefore, when a signal is received from residents that a cow parsnip has been found somewhere, we first find out who the owner or tenant of this territory is, and then we decide whether we should take measures, or who owns this object, ”says on terms anonymity one of the employees of the municipal land control of the Moscow region.

It is precisely because it is not easy to find the owner of this or that land that last year the Moscow Regional Duma adopted another law regarding cow parsnip, now municipal services can forcibly destroy it even on private land, and then bill the owners.

True, all the same volunteers were very skeptical about this initiative.

“Municipalities cannot cope with their volumes, why else would they take on the additional burden for private land,” notes Osipova. According to her, it is easier for officials to issue fines – the more they are draconian in the Moscow region, reaching a million rubles for legal entities – than to mow someone else’s grass for a penny.

No man’s land

Meanwhile, fines are not a panacea either. Again, for the reason that it is not always possible to find a specific owner of the land. For example, in some SNTs near Moscow, a third of the plots are considered abandoned, their owners do not pay fees, taxes, and do not process their acres. Some cannot be found even according to the documents, so these escheated plots are overgrown with weeds, the neighbors complain to the board of the garden partnership that harmful seeds are flying towards them from behind the fence, they, in turn, signal to the land control, but while the court and the case, the weed is ready move to the neighbors; and conscientious summer residents have to pick up scythes themselves in order to repulse the aggressor.

No man’s land can be found not only in holiday villages. Many state lands also do not have clear boundaries. If you look at the cadastral map, then the forest there, as a rule, ends half a meter from the side of the federal highway. Who should process these 50 centimeters? Foresters and road builders nod at each other, and while nodding, hogweed manages to capture both the edge of the forest and the side of the road.

And yet, in the near Moscow suburbs, at the very least, the hogweed is monitored and does not allow it to grow totally, but where you can really find its impenetrable thickets – sometimes taller than human growth – is in the distant outposts of the Moscow region, especially in abandoned agricultural lands. The question is, why don’t they fine the unfortunate owners there and don’t take away the plots overgrown with hogweed from them?

“Even as we punish, last year monetary sanctions in the amount of 25 million rubles were imposed on such owners. But some owners find it easier to pay a fine than to mess with the land. And in order to withdraw it in court, you need very good reasons. Before issuing a decision on punishment, we announce a warning and give time to eliminate the identified shortcomings. It is enough to plow up your plot of land once a year, and formally it will be difficult to accuse the owner of the fact that his land is not being cultivated – his lawyer will evade the fine, ”says our insider in land control.

Martyshkin’s work?

This year, the Moscow region was going to cultivate 20,000 hectares, which is about half of all areas affected by hogweed. The other day, reports began to come from the field: basically, the plans were completed by 60 percent. On paper, these results look good, because the year is not over yet, but in reality the picture is quite different. Now, at the end of summer, when the hogweed has already faded and its seeds have ripened, weeds should never be mowed, otherwise the tractor wheels will bring this infection even where it has never grown before.

“The fight against hogweed should begin in early spring, as soon as the snow melts. During this period, it is best to dig out small sprouts: young plants have a small root, but the next year it can reach a meter depth, and then even herbicides will not work on it, ”says farmer Olga Zvonareva.

Olya’s family several years ago received an abandoned plot of land on the border of the Moscow and Tver regions for the organization of a peasant farm.

“Our village is located 150 kilometers from Moscow, there are thickets of cow parsnip everywhere. When we first arrived, we were horrified by the magnitude of the disaster; my husband said that this was all a monkey’s work and we would never get the cow parsnip. But they say correctly: the eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing. And although in the three years that have passed since then, we have not been able to completely get rid of it, but the result is already visible, ”says Olga.

According to her, she and her husband tried all known methods of weed control: they plowed the land several times, mowed it, treated it with herbicides and even dug it out – this, by the way, is the most time-consuming and at the same time the most effective way.

“There are people who, going to the forest to pick mushrooms, take a garbage bag with them and along the way collect found bottles, cans and other waste; and we, wherever we go, always take with us a strong bag for cow parsnip, a sapper shovel or a sharp knife. He is our personal enemy, and there can be no mercy for the enemy,” the farmer says.

“Mowing the weeds gave little effect: you mow it, and it grows again, and it begins to bloom near the ground itself, where you won’t notice it right away,” Olga shares her experience. “We don’t want to poison with chemicals either, after it the earth becomes dead, and it’s dangerous for livestock. You have to move forward like this, slowly, step by step. To date, of the 23 hectares leased, we have managed to completely clear half; on the rest of the arable land, weeds come across, but not totally, as it was. If seeds from neighboring fields did not fly to our site, it would be generally good. Therefore, we walk around with a knife and a shovel. At first, the locals laughed at us, and now they themselves have begun to do the same, ”the farmer admits.

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Ecologists say that if global warming continues to increase at the same pace as now, then in 20-30 years the entire tundra beyond the Arctic Circle will be overgrown with Sosnovsky’s hogweed. This biological aggressor is rapidly capturing new territories, suppressing other types of flora, it threatens the biological diversity of our country. They say that individual specimens of this incredibly tenacious plant are found even on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Therefore, there was a need to make a program to combat a dangerous weed universal federal, and the law on invasive plants is needed to put an end to the expansion of hogweed.

“This monster needs to be fought with the whole world, because if everyone fights it only on their six acres, we will not win,” says Yana, a young activist from the Shchelkovo urban district. After two years ago her younger brother severely burned the cornea of ​​​​the eye with hogweed juice and almost went blind, the girl declared war on the weed. She has gathered a group of equally committed activists on social networks and is constantly exchanging information about where their personal enemy is growing.

By the way, Shchelkovo is one of the few municipalities near Moscow where officials have managed to find a common language with social activists and promptly respond to their signals. And the activists themselves are not sitting idly by — they organize subbotniks, are actively engaged in weeding in the public areas of the city.

“We believe that hogweed thickets are a sign of degradation not only of the area, but also of society. What are we worth as people, individuals, if we cannot cope with some weeds, ”the young activist explained her civic position.

Too bad not everyone thinks so.

MEANWHILE

Since 2018, a regional law has been in force in the Moscow Region, according to which a significant fine can be imposed on the owner of a land plot for not destroying Sosnovsky’s hogweed. An individual faces fines of up to 5,000 rubles, officials (including the chairman of the SNT) – up to 50,000 rubles, legal entities – up to a million rubles. In addition to punishments, the law also provides incentives for active fighters with hogweed. In the region, subsidies have been introduced for owners to fight hogweed – 18,000 rubles per hectare.