Students of the Institute held environmental education activities covering wildfire occurrences

When they talk about the need to preserve the forest, to prevent fires, they mainly think about the loss of wood and the reduction of the green "layer" of the planet, which produces oxygen. But the main problem of wildfires is related to their impact on the global climate!

According to experts, the total amount of annual carbon dioxide emissions (a source of the greenhouse effect) from fires is equal to about a quarter of emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels (oil, coal, gas). Carbon dioxide is also formed after fires - not completely burnt trees rot, decompose, and also emit carbon dioxide. A forest damaged by repeated fires weakens, recovers more slowly, absorbs less carbon dioxide, and releases oxygen.

In Russia, every year three to four times more forest is burned than it is cut down (both legal and illegal). In 2021, a record (since the beginning of the XXI century) of 18.2 million hectares of forest has already burned down on the territory of Russia!

The students of Ecology Club decided to remind the residents of the city of Rubtsovsk about the real causes of wildfires and the need to prevent them. They designed and produced forest fire prevention leaflets.

On September 22, 10 members of the club distributed their leaflets on the streets of the city. Leaflets were distributed in the university, but the fighters of the environmental squad decided to supplement this work with one more event and organized a poster competition among students on the topic of the destructiveness of forest fires. On September 24, the posters submitted for the competition were presented by their authors. The whole audience evaluated the work by secret ballot.

Of course, this kind of environmental education campaign should not be a one-off event. They should be held on a regular basis. This is one of the reasons that Ecology Club carries out its activities at the Rubtsovsk Institute (branch) of Altai State University!