Founded on December 23, 1929. Since 1966 the Institute has been subordinated to the Ministry, later – the State Committee of Forestry of Ukraine. On April 1, 2004 it obtained the status of double subordination to the State Committee of Forestry of Ukraine and the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The Institute has research laboratories of:
- forestry with the sector of hunting studies;
- forest plantations and forest melioration;
- forest breeding; forest protection; forest ecology;
- soil science;
- monitoring and certification with the sector of forest certification;
- economics and organization of forest management;
- novel information technologies.
Institute’s experimental network consists of: V. M. Vinogradov Steppe Branch (with an experimental forestry base and the Center of hunting studies) and Polissia Branch, as well as Vinnytsya (with an experimental forestry base), Kyiv (with 2 experimental forestry bases), Krasnotrostyanets and Mariupol Forest Research Stations (with an experimental arboretum); Novhorod-Siverska Forest Research Station (with an experimental forestry base), Luhansk Forest Melioration Research Station (with an experimental forestry base), Crimean Mountain Forest Research Station, Danylivsky Experimental State Forest Arboretum.
Main research areas: growing, preservation, regeneration of productive and stable stands (including protective ones); protection of forests (forest plants in hot-houses, nurseries, forest plantations) and protective forest stands against pests and diseases; forest monitoring and certification; forest soil science; forest hunting studies; breeding of forest-tree species; micropropagation of forest-tree species; novel information technologies; improving legislation for forest management on the principles of sustainable development; working out measures to counteract the impact of the global climate change, industrial pollution, radioactive contamination and recreation activites in forest ecosystems and agrarian landscapes.
Principal achievements: Legislative documents were drafted and practical recommendations developed concerning forest use and forest management; grounded were ages of maturity for major forest-tree species of Ukraine and forest economy zoning for the territory of Ukraine; respective norms of optimal forest coverage were calculated.
Methodological approaches were proposed to determine the degree of forest ecosystem transformations under recreation loadings. Phenological theory of insect pest population dynamics was developed. Patterns in population structure and dynamics were revealed for hunting fauna. Models were developed to estimate green-house gases absorption by forests, alongside with criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management for voluntary forest certification. The Institute is the national coordination center of forest monitoring.
