Human resources for forestry in Kazakhstan: Current status, potential and problems

Kazakhstan is mostly composed of plains, lowlands and hills but also a small number of mountains, inland rivers and lakes. The plains are mainly distributed in the West, North and Southwest, the central part is the Kazakh hills, and the Eastern and Southeastern parts are the Altai and Tien Shan Mountains. Between the Caspian Sea and Tien Shan Mountains, farmland, grassland and desert are distributed from North to South. High mountain areas are stretched along the southern and eastern part of the country and occupy less than 10% of the territory of Kazakhstan. Farmlands are mainly concentrated in the Northern plain area, East and Eastern foothill area, and grasslands are mainly distributed in the central, northeastern and northwestern plain areas (Fig. 2A). Desertification occurred in more than a half of the territory (more than 60%) and the deserts are mainly distributed in the central and southern areas (Hu et al. 2020). Since the territory of Kazakhstan is mainly located in steppe, semi-desert and desert zones, the predominant tree species is saxaul (Haloxylon spp.) and other shrub communities, which occupy about 70% of the total forest area (Fig. 2B). There are only 996 ha in private ownership, and they do not include forested land (Kazakh Forest Regulation Enterprise 2021). The climate conditions in Kazakhstan are characterized by frequent droughts and high continentality. Except for the high mountain areas, annual precipitation in most of the country is almost two times lower than potential evaporation (250–300 and 500–600 mm/year respectively), which results in a severe moisture deficit for plants (Zubairov et al. 2019).

Figure 2

For the survey of forest workers, two pilot oblasts were selected: Almaty and East Kazakhstan, since these oblasts have a significant wood reserve in the Republic, and the forest cover is 9.4 and 7.2%, respectively, which is higher compared to other oblasts of the country. In Almaty oblast, saxaul forests, floodplain and riparian forests, mountain forests of the Tien Shan grow, and in East Kazakhstan, dark coniferous and larch forests of the Kazakhstan Altai and Saur, Irtysh ribbon forests, steppe forest outliers of Kazakh Upland and Tarbagatai. In the Almaty oblast, there are concentrated reserves of wood species, including valuable ones, such as Schrenk's spruce, fir, birch, aspen, poplar, apple tree in the mountainous part, and black and white saxaul, turanga or the asiatic poplar, willow tree in the flat part whereas in the East Kazakhstan oblast the pine, fir, spruce, cedar and larch are main species. In the republic, 74.7% of the total forest area is part of 120 MSFMIs, which are subordinate to the fourteen Natural Resources and Environmental Control Departments of the akimats of the oblasts (a regional executive body in Kazakhstan). The area of the state forest resources of the MSFMIs is divided into forestry departments on a territorial basis. The remaining area of the total forest area is occupied by specially protected natural territories under the jurisdiction of the Committee of Forestry and Wildlife of the Ministry of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Kazakh Forest Regulation Enterprise 2021). The number of employees in specially protected natural territories of Kazakhstan was 3.5 thousand people in 2017.

The general management of all operational processes in a forest institution is carried out by the director (chief forest wardens) and deputy director (deputy chief forest wardens). Organization and coordination of works on conservation, protection and regeneration of forests and forest management are carried out by forestry engineers of all categories (senior forest wardens). The forest warden manages the forestry department, organizes control over the performance of works on the harvesting of minor forest products and ensuring forest conservation and protection. A master of the wood follows the instructions of forest warden's, an allotment of the total forest area is assigned to him/her, which as a rule includes 2–3 forest ranges. A forester carries out direct conservation, protection of allotments of the state total forest area (State Forest Fund) and the property entrusted to him/her (Regulation on the State Forest Protection 2015).

Almost 5.5 thousand people of the state forest service works in 120 MSFMIs of the country (Tab. 1) and the qualifications of these employees are shown in Figure 3. It was depicted that majority of the employees are foresters (63% of the total number), followed by masters of the wood (13%), engineers of forestry of all categories (13%), forest wardens (7%) and directors (4%). Figure 4 shows the number of MSFMIs employees in different oblasts depending on the area covered by the forest, suggesting that majority of the employees are in the East Kazakhstan and Almaty oblasts and least in Atyrau and Mangystau oblasts. On the contrary, in Zhambyl, Kyzylorda and Turkestan oblasts where the area covered by forest is quite extensive (1665.6 to 3146.7 thousand ha), the number of employees is comparatively less (331 to 453 people). This is because these oblasts belong to desert areas and mainly saxaul is growing which has anti-erosion as well as field and soil protective functions. Thus, following the rules and regulations for the state forest resources (State Forest Fund) (Norms and standards… 2015), the area of forest range per 1 forester is 30–40 thousand ha and the area of the forest plot of master of the wood is 150–160 thousand ha. In the Akmola, Karaganda, Kostanay, Pavlodar and North Kazakhstan oblasts where field and soil protective forests grows, steppe and forest-steppe areas are predominant, the area of forest range per 1 forester is suggested to be 1.5–2.0 thousand ha of forest and the area of the forest plot of master of the wood is 7.0–9.0 thousand ha. Whereas in Aktobe, Atyrau and West Kazakhstan oblasts have anti-erosion, field and soil protective forests, restricted belts of forests along the banks of rivers, lakes, reservoirs, channels and other water bodies predominate, and thus, the forest range per 1 forester is 1.75 thousand ha and for one master of wood is 8.0 thousand ha (Norms and standards… 2015; Fig. 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

In MSFMIs, the share of women is 6.1% of all categories of employees. In terms of position categories women in forest institutions work mainly as engineers of forestry of all categories (51%), foresters (21%) and masters of the wood (19%), while only 4% are forest wardens and 5% are directors (Fig. 5). In terms of oblasts, the largest number of women is represented in the MSFMIs in East Kazakhstan oblast (103 people), the lowest in Atyrau (3 people) and Pavlodar (6 people) oblasts (Fig. 6).

Figure 5

Figure 6

The training of specialists in the field of forestry is carried out in colleges and universities in Kazakhstan. The college confers the following qualifications: landscape architect, master of the wood, forester, landscape design master and technician-technologist. Specialists are being trained in 9 universities in six oblasts, whereas in four oblasts (Aktobe, Atyrau, Karaganda and Mangystau), there is no professional training of specialists in the field of forestry. The level of education of forest workers is low as only 55% of the MSFMIs employees have higher, specialized secondary or vocational education, and the remaining 45% have secondary or incomplete secondary education (Fig. 7). Similarly, the number and qualifications of forest workers with respect to their position in 120 MSFMIs is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 7

Figure 8

Currently, forest sector workers can improve their professional level at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Kazakh National Agrarian Research University (Almaty) and at the Kazakh Research Institute of Forestry and Agroforestry named after A.N. Bukeikhan (Shchuchinsk). According to the data from 2003 to 2019 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Control Departments of the oblast's akimats, a total of 3,008 specialists were trained in advanced training courses including 161 women (Fig. 9). It was observed that the largest number of forest workers (more than 250 people per year) has completed advanced training in years 2005, 2010, 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2019, which suggested that the growth of advanced training of employees every 3 years. Following the Rules and Conditions of civil servants review engaged in activities in the field of agriculture, water industry, forestry and wildlife (2016), forest specialists who are part of the state protection are certified after each subsequent 3 years of stay in the civil services for which they must undergo training or advanced training, and this can be correlated with the data collected in the present study.

Figure 9

Further collecting the data for the specialists who have passed advanced training courses depicted that the number varies according to the region, and in North Kazakhstan, East Kazakhstan and Akmola oblast a total of 1530, 508 and 213 people, respectively, have taken up the training. According to the directorate for sub-surface use, environment and water resources of Pavlodar oblast not a single forest specialist took advanced training courses. Whereas the percentage of specialists of MSFMIs who completed advanced training courses were foresters (59%), engineers of forestry of all categories (12%), masters of the woods (12%), forest wardens (9%) and directors (8%) (Fig. 10).

Figure 10

The survey involved 840 people consisted of 90% men (758 people) and 10% women (82 people). In terms of staff positions, 64% were foresters, 17% were masters of the wood, 9% were engineers of forestry of all categories, 6% were forest wardens and 4% were directors. The largest number of participants in the survey was represented with secondary specialized (44%), secondary (36%) education and higher education (20%).

The foresters, in addition to forest specialties, presented more than 50 different specialties according to the diploma, e.g., associated with livestock farming, technical knowledge, electricity, with pedagogics, with financial and legal education, agriculture, and cook, turner, builder, carpenter, mason, welder, etc. Masters of the wood were represented by 27 different specialties but mostly agricultural and technical. Foresters and engineers of forestry of all categories had skills which met the qualification requirements of higher (or postgraduate) education in specialties such as forest resources and forestry, ecology or technical and vocational education such as forestry and garden-park and landscape construction and ecology and environmental activities (Standard qualification characteristics of positions… 2017). The directors had 14 different specialties, including technical and legal education. The work experience in the forest sector ranges from 0 to 5 years (33.6%), 6 to 10 years (22.6%) and 11 to 15 years (23.0%) (Fig. 11). It was noted that only 20.8% were more experienced forest professionals with more than 15 years of experience, who did not provide appropriate continuity and mentoring in forest institutions. According to the classification of the World Health Organization (WHO 2015), young age is from 18 to 44 years, mean age is from 45 to 59 years and elderly age is between 60 to 74 years. According to this classification, 50.6% of workers were young, 43.6% were middle-aged and 5.8% were elderly, and the average age of a forest worker was 44.7 years (Fig. 12).

Figure 11

Figure 12

The observation of the present study revealed that more than half (57.6%) of forest workers in the pilot oblasts were not satisfied with their wages. Similarly, all categories of forest workers indicated the lack of sufficient funding for the forest industry, the lack of material and technical resources, as well as low wages in comparison with other industries. At work, foresters experienced difficulties with filling out documentation, in the fight against poaching and drawing up reports on violations. Masters of the wood, in addition to the above problems, experienced other difficulties like getting into hard-to-reach areas due to problems with vehicles, repairs in office premises, lack of fire extinguishers and need for mechanization of manual labour. Foresters and engineers of forestry of all categories note the lack of specialists and systematic improvement of their skills. Directors point to the weak material and technical support due to insufficient funding from the state, the lack of specialists with higher education, staff turnover, especially foresters, the difficulty of moving on mountain rivers is due to the lack of appropriate infrastructure, etc. The average percentage of facilities of the MSFMIs with technical equipment in the Republic is about 65% of the standard. For example, the technical equipment of the MSFMIs of Almaty was more than 80%, whereas for East Kazakhstan, it was about 40%.

It was noted that currently the forest service workers are in urgent need of modern off-road vehicles (UAZ, UAZ Farmer, GAZ-66), especially in mountainous areas, tractors of various categories (crawler-type, wheel-type) and forestry equipment for them, shift buses of the URAL brand for transporting workers to hard-to-reach areas, fire trucks, patrol and over-snow vehicles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). Also, the questionnaires indicated the need to obtain modern and new equipment like quadcopter and drones, GPS-navigators with offline maps that display the boundaries of the state total forest area, portable transmitter and transmission facilities. Quadcopter and drones are necessary for the organization especially for forest fire fighting in mountainous conditions, to accurately and quickly determine the boundaries of the fire. This technique can also be used when patrolling the state total forest area, especially in mountainous conditions and hard-to-reach places.

In the pilot oblasts, 64% of employees have never upgraded their skills and only 3% of employees have taken advanced training courses four or more times or annually. In the questionnaires, the MSFMIs employees noted the need for systematic training courses in all areas of forestry. For efficient and better assimilation of the material for training courses for forest workers, the MSFMIs offer (1) to expand, deepen and update previously acquired theoretical and practical knowledge, taking into account the latest world experience; (2) to carry out more laboratory and practical classes in the forest, combine theory with practice; (3) to apply and implement the latest and innovative technologies in the field of forestry, the ability to work with the latest and modern surveillance technology; (4) to exchange experience between specialists from different MSFMIs, universities, research institutions in the field of forestry and wildlife; and (5) to carry out training with the use of computer technologies. Also, more than half of the employees (51%) offer to carry out advanced training courses for forest workers in a remote format. More than 70% of the employees of the MSFMIs need knowledge of psychology and psychological training in their work which affect their professional as well as career growth. Psychological trainings increase the self-esteem of each member of the team, the level of team cohesion, inspire confidence in their abilities and skills and reduce the level of emotional burnout and anxiety of the employees.

The analysis of the current state of human resources in MSFMIs revealed that the problem and difficulty in the work of these institutions was staff turnover. The Labor Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (2015) does not contain the concept of staff turnover. According to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (2001), “staff turnover is the movement of the workforce due to employee dissatisfaction with the workplace or the organization's dissatisfaction with a specific employee”. Table 2 shows the reasons for staff turnover in the MSFMIs of the Almaty and East Kazakhstan oblasts and in most cases, employees left at their own request (81% Almaty and 77% East Kazakhstan oblast), in connection with the transition to another job (4% Almaty and 12% East Kazakhstan oblast) and retirement (7% Almaty and 9% East Kazakhstan oblast). In terms of staff positions, the turnover was mainly observed in foresters (54% Almaty and 71% East Kazakhstan oblast), followed by engineers of forestry of all categories (28% Almaty, 11% East Kazakhstan oblast) and masters of the wood (10% Almaty, 11% East Kazakhstan oblast).

Eleven thousand people were employed in forestry in the Kazakhstan in 2017, of which seven thousand works in inspectorate (state forestry guards), which is a national average of over three people (full time equivalent) per thousand ha of forest (Prins et al. 2019). For comparison, the forestry of the Russian Federation employed about 440 thousand employees in 2010, where the forests occupy 49.8% of total area of the country (FAO 2012). According to 2012 data in Finland, the forestry employed about 22 thousand people where the forests occupy 71.6% of country's total area, and still significant part of the forestry work has been carried out by private forest owners and their families (Lier and Parviainen 2013). Whereas in Japan 61.8% of the total territory occupied by forests and for that the number of employees employed in forestry was approximately 64 thousand in 2015 (Forestry Agency 2019). In the central and provincial units of the General Directorate of Forest in Turkey, where forests cover 28% area, the number of officers, permanent and casual workers, temporary employees and casual staff was around 39 thousand as of 2016. 45.7% of these personnel hold civil servant status and the main employee groups responsible for activities regarding forestry in the General Directorate of Forest are forest engineers (27%) and forest rangers (39%) (Yurdakul Erol 2017). In United Kingdom where 13% of the area is covered by forests, the average employment in 2018 in forestry was 16 thousand (Forest Research 2020). According to the present data, the forestry employed about 5.5 thousand people where the forests occupy 4.9% of total area of Kazakhstan (Kazakh Forest Regulation Enterprise 2021). If we take the ratio of 1 thousand foresters per 1% of forest cover, then in comparison with the Russian Federation Kazakhstan has about 8 times less foresters, whereas it is 3.5 times more in comparison to Finland, and about the same with countries like Japan, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

Employment in forestry is based on gender roles and stereotypes. A study by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) found that women are much less represented in forestry and prefer not to be trained and, consequently, not to work in this field. This is due to reasons including the predominance of men in the industry and perceptions of hard physical labour. Nevertheless, equal opportunities should be created for women in the sphere of forestry. The adoption of flexible working arrangements, the creation of networks made up exclusively of women, appropriate training, mentoring and adequate working conditions, all of these can be used to attract more women professionals to the industry. Mostly women work in forest nurseries, as well as they engaged in tree planting and tending of the stand. Some also perform work related to heavy physical labour, such as logging operations (timber-harvesting) and fire-fighting (UNECE 2006).

The present study revealed that the women comprise 6.1% of the overall employees in the forestry which is less as compared to many other countries. As in US, the percentage of women employees was 38.5% of the total forest service workforce in 2001, of which the professionals were 30.7%, technical were 32.7% and administrative were 59.1%, whereas the percentage women employees were 27.8% in 1981 and 43.5% in 1991 (Lewis 2005). The Finnish forest sector was also dominated by men, with women accounting for only about 20% of all employees (Lier and Parviainen 2013) whereas the share of women engaged in the forest management and logging industry in Canada was 18.4% (Gesner 2017). In 2010, the number of women employed in forestry worldwide reached around 1.4 million. High employment of women in the forest sector has been observed in such countries as Bangladesh (600 thousand), China (300 thousand), Mali (180 thousand) and Brazil (90 thousand). The countries with the highest share of female employment in forestry are Mali (90%), Mongolia and Namibia (45%) and Bangladesh (40%). Higher women employee in forestry in some countries can be partly attributed to progress in policies and legislation, such as in Bangladesh, where its forest policies and legislation were updated to increase women's participation (Whiteman 2015). The survey of the women employed in forestry in Bosnia and Herzegovina found that only a quarter of the surveyed women had agricultural or forestry educations, while others have some other educational institutions (Mašić 2020). The author suggested that forestry as a profession is more attractive to women who have graduated from other high schools, e.g., liberal arts schools or other technical schools. They have also reported that majority of the working women engineers in forestry were aged between 20 and 35 years.

The average age of a forest worker of Almaty and East Kazakhstan oblasts was 44.7 years, whereas the average age of employees in state-financed and autonomous forest institutions (the equivalent of the MSFMIs) of the Volga Federal district of the Russian Federation as of December 31, 2018, was slight higher (47.5 years). However, the number of employees in the age group under 36 years compared to the number of employees in the age group over 60 years is 2.3 times more. In the event of retirement or dismissal of older employees, the replacement of vacant jobs will be promptly provided from among young professionals. The personnel shortage was 1,710 people (22.5%). To a greater extent, there are not enough employees of the lower level of district divisions, nurseries, processing shops, in the context of professions such as masters of the wood, foresters, tractor operators, daggers, etc., in the Republic of Mari El; the shortage of personnel was 75.6%, or 65 people (Cherkasova and Voldaev 2019). To the best of our knowledge, the age structure of forest workers for countries other than Russian Federation is scanty.

Previous studies on forest management institutions of China observed that the major problems are the inadequate number of forestry personnel, semiskilled or low qualified human resources, the ageing of personnel, in-consequent structures of personnel, scarcity of technical personnel, unbalanced distribution of forestry human resources, out of date mindsets and management mechanism, lack of a human resources development plan and their organization system, little attention is paid to the education and retraining of the talented personnel, the procedure for admission to job and hiring is not justified and lack of deeper education, training and research (Wang and Chen 2013; Xu 2015; Zhang and Li 2015; Jiang 2020). To overcome these problems, it has been suggested that they should increasing awareness of the importance of forestry human resources development and management, improving the management mechanism, deepening forestry education reform, strengthening continuing education for the in-service staff and increasing investment on human resource development. The reform of human resource development should be innovative and pay much more attention to education and professional retraining, invest more in scientific research and focus on environmental construction and forestry development (Zhang 2014; Ma and Jia 2015; Wang and Li 2018).

Most of the MSFMIs in the Kazakhstan are located in rural areas in places remote from developed infrastructure. This is one of the major reasons behind employees’ resignation because it is difficult for families of employees to receive high-quality medical care, a high-quality education for children, the lack of high-speed internet as well as the lack of some other benefits that are available in cities. Also, the reason for an employee's resignation and transition to another job may be dissatisfaction with the level of pay. However, according to Judge et al. (2010), “level of pay bears a positive, but quite modest, relationship to a job and pay satisfaction”. The average wage of a forester in the MSFMIs of Kazakhstan is 66,557 tenge (about $ 160) (Kz.trud.com, salary survey for the position of forester in Kazakhstan), master of the wood – 84,153 tenge (about $ 204) and engineer of forestry of all categories – 1,31,678 tenge (about $ 319) (Kz.trud.com, salary survey for the position of forestry engineer in Kazakhstan). Depending on the region, work experience and category, the average monthly nominal wage in Kazakhstan for 2020 is more than 2,11,000 tenge (about $ 511) (Bureau of National Statistics); however, it is less as compared to other countries. The average wage of a forester in the Russian Federation is 20,147 Russian rubles (about $ 279) (Trud.com, statistics of wages of foresters in Russia), an engineer of forestry of all categories – 35,238 Russian rubles (about $ 489) (Trud. com, statistics of wages of forestry engineers in Russia) at that, the average monthly nominal salary for 2020 is more than 49,000 Russian rubles (about $ 680) (Federal State Statistic Service). The study on forest workers in Indonesia also suggested that they are dissatisfied with their salary (Gandaseca and Yoshimura 2001) whereas most of the employees are satisfied by their wages in Turkey (Köse et al. 2020).

A 2001 study on the work safety, health protection and living conditions of forest workers in Indonesia found that working and living conditions of forest workers are quite unfavorable because of very severe thermal conditions in the work area and because forestry work is also heavy, dirty and dangerous, requiring poor working postures and exposure to noise and vibration. Thus many forest workers suffered from lower back pain that resulted from muscle exertion, especially when lifting heavy objects such as chainsaws or logs. To prevent such accidents while driving and execution of work, it is necessary to supply more personal protective equipment, establish traffic rules on forestry roads, improve the surface course of forestry roads and give forest workers training and education on safe driving (Gandaseca and Yoshimura 2001). The study on the occupational health and safety of forest workers provided in 2004 in the Artvin region in northeastern Turkey found that many forest workers were living in barracks or caravans located in mountains away from their families and were doing heavy work. 24% of the surveyed experienced accidents during work many of which were caused by chainsaws or axes and 47% of those surveyed were dissatisfied with their jobs mainly because of low salary and heavy work which affected the cumulative fatigue of forest workers (Yoshimura and Acar 2004). The study of Köse et al. (2020) on 496 people from 9 provinces of Turkey observed that the unfair and incompetent personnel policies and political pressure are main factors that are affecting work satisfaction in Turkish forest sector.

The increased turnover of personnel reduces certain staffing of workplaces, distracts more experienced workers from the labour process, worsens the moral and psychological climate in the team and reduces labour productivity, which ultimately entails economic losses. The management of turnover becomes one of the determining factors in ensuring the sustainable and stable development of the organization (Avcharenko 2010). The problem of turnover or outflow of personnel in forestry is also typical for Russia. The outflow of qualified specialists from the industry has led to the emergence of elements of the disintegration of human resources in forestry. The annual number of vacancies in the forest sector has been steady in recent years (around 15%). It is assumed that the formation of a set of measures within the framework of the program of the Russian Federation “Development of Forestry” aimed at supporting and developing the workforce capacity of the industry will allow to solve the issues of attracting young specialists to the industry. The revival of the institute of mentoring and support of families of forest specialists is proposed. It has been suggested that the improvement of the branch system of staff training will allow modernizing the process of developing the workforce capacity, consolidate personnel and give them the opportunity for career growth (Morkovina and Netrebskaya 2020). In the Kyrgyz Republic, staff turnover, reduced capacity of forest employees and the interest of qualified forest industry professionals are the most serious problems of forest management institutions. As discussed earlier, due to the low wages, it is difficult to attract necessary number of local workers on a contract basis to carry out cultural work. Therefore, foresters, instead of carrying out their functional duties for the conservation and protection of the forest, are forced to engage in fatigue duties.