ENVIRONMENT-RUSSIA: World’s Biggest Forests in Danger

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, May 2 2002 (IPS) - Illegal logging is killing off the world’s largest virgin forests located in Russia, a new environmental atlas shows.

Virgin forests are almost extinct in European Russia, with only 9 per cent of the forested area still intact, according to The Atlas of Russia’s Intact Forests compiled by Global Forest Watch, a non-governmental environmental organisation.

The atlas defines a virgin forest as an area more than 50,000 hectares that is unaffected by human activities. Unless decisive action is taken within the next few years, virgin forests may disappear in Russia, a report accompanying the atlas says.

Russia still has 289 million hectares of virgin forest, which is about 26 per cent of the total forested area, the report says. Half the remaining virgin forest is located in just five regions of Siberia and the east, the report says.

It is not just the virgin forests under threat. Only a quarter of Russia’s forests remain unaffected by exploitation, the report says.

Forestry products are big business. Export is worth about three billion dollars a year, says Andrei Ptichnikov, forestry programme co-ordinator with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Illegal logging is believed to net another billion dollars a year, he says.

Russia has a fifth of the world’s forest cover, which means more forests than any other country. They cover about ten million square kilometres, an area larger than the U.S. Most of these forests, called “taiga” in Russian, are in Siberia and the Far Eastern region of Russia. They are largely pine and spruce.

Protection for these forests is far from adequate, particularly in the Far Eastern region of Russia, environmentalists say. Moscow has pledged at least 3 per cent of its GDP to environment protection. Activists believe actual disbursements are just about 0.01 per cent of GDP.

In May 2000 President Vladimir Putin dissolved both the State Committee for Environmental Protection which was responsible for monitoring the environment, and the Federal Forestry Service. The institutions were turned into departments of the Natural Resources Ministry.

Environmentalists argue that a single government agency should not oversee environment protection and also exploitation of natural resources because this inevitably brings conflict of interest.

Axing Russia’s 202-year-old forestry service drew particular criticism. The environmentalists argue that the end of the Service has damaged forest protection.

Under this year’s federal budget, the forestry service department within the Natural Resources Ministry virtually lost government funding. Leading forestry experts sent an open letter to President Putin last month urging him to strengthen the service.

Greenpeace Russia held a public rally in downtown Moscow last month to protest against illegal logging. Alexei Yaroshenko from the group, one of the contributors to the forestry atlas says Russian officials have not responded to their demands.

The situation is particularly grave in the Far Eastern areas, WWF experts say. Almost three-quarters of forest area in the border areas with China is believed to have been cleared illegally. The wood is smuggled to China.

Primorie region is of particular concern, they say. Official forest cutting in the region is reported at three million cubic metres a year while illegal logging axes more than half that much.

The Primorie legislative assembly drafted a bill last month for a complete ban on clearing of oak and spruce forests. Legislators described the position as “critical”.

Environmentalists welcome the move in Primorie but say local authorities are likely to face immense challenges in enforcing their orders.

Federal officials have promised a new law to combat illegal logging. The officials have declared they will amend Russia’s criminal code to introduce tougher measures against illegal logging, and reinstate export quotas for wood. But no such measures have materialised yet.