May 2021 – As part of the company team-building exercise, the YMS team helped the Forests of Slovakia (FOS) and the civic association My Slovakia, with a successful brigade to start the new project of FOS, a Million trees. We planted the first thousand trees, spruces, firs, and beeches, in a forest near Bytča, on Thursday, May 6th.
The goal of this project is not only to plant this amount of trees and monitor, where and how fast it happens but also through working with volunteers in different parts of Slovakia to show to the public the true extent of work rangers do and that goes into caring for a forest. The intention of YMS was to be among the first to cooperate with the rangers on the project, which we succeeded in doing.
“The YMS crew showed by planting a thousand trees that they aren’t only efficient/good/useful at working with computers, where they prepare specialized mapping applications for the rangers, but also in steep forest terrain with a hoe or mattock in hand. 1000 saplings, which the rangers prepared for us, were planted by YMS in cooperation with Allianz insurance company in around 5 hours, including induction training. It was interesting to try out forestry work, especially planting trees in steep terrain, where it was necessary to clean the area of the fallen remains of calamitous wood before we could even begin digging and planting the saplings” evaluated the team effort of his colleagues the chairman of the YMS supervisory board, Mikuláš Szapu.
We planted the so-called Carpathian mix, under the watchful eyes of experienced rangers. It is a combination of spruce, fir, and beech saplings, which fit well in certain altitudes, around 700-800 meters above sea level, and when planted alternatively they are resilient even in a steep incline. “It is an area with difficult terrain and has a lot of wind and water erosion that is dangerous for classic monocultural planting. This is why we decided to add spruce, which has shallow root systems, complementary deep-rooted fir conifer, and deciduous beech, which helps keep the whole system together. It is ecologically and climatically the best solution,” explains Matúš Pivovar, project coordinator and vice-chairman of the civic association My Slovakia.
Rangers spent time with us in small groups and monitored the method of planting since the survival of the sapling is 90% dependent on the quality of planting. “The tree needs to be planted deep enough, pressed down strongly, and most importantly placed on the incline in such a way that it isn’t washed up during rain or frost. A tree planted in this manner will be maintained by rangers for about 5 to 10 more years before it becomes a strong tree that will also grow for our children. After being planted for a few years the tree is weeded and sensitive saplings are coated to protect them from being chewed by animals,” explains the project coordinator, Anna Sliacka from FOS.
The entire YMS team joined the event despite the ongoing measures against Covid, which required a negative test not older than 12 hours. “This meant that we began the teambuilding event by going to an antigen test center in Trnava as a group. Luckily it didn’t discourage my colleagues and the event was a success. Team YMS is planning to join the rangers in planting saplings regularly. We believe that in the future with more experience in the forest, not only behind a computer, we will get closer to professional performance and plant an unbelievable 300 to 500 saplings a day,” closes Mikuláš Szapu.
The project and its launch, which occurred at the end of April in the forest manor house Antonstahl, was introduced by the Slovak Television’s Halali show. Signing up to volunteer plant saplings happens online on the website www.mojles.sk.