Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region Sergey Sokol: “People who earn on the forest, prevent the industry from coming out of the shadow”

In the forest complex of the Irkutsk region, there is a whole complex of unsolved problems. People who earn on the forest, as well as designed to regulate the industry, are interested to tighten its output from the shadows for as long as possible.

This was stated by the Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region Sergey Sokol at the parliamentary hearings on the use of forest resources of the Irkutsk region, which took place on February 19, 209 in the regional Parliament.

As the press service of the Legislative Assembly of the Irkutsk region reported, deputies of the Legislative Assembly, representatives of the government of the Angara region, the Baikal inter-district Prosecutor, the leadership of the regional Department of the tax service and the Department of Rosprirodnadzor, representatives of the All-Russian people’s front, the all-Russian society for nature protection take part in the hearings.

Sergey Sokol noted that dozens of criminal cases related to criminal activities in the forest are initiated every year. Illegal logging takes place under the guise of sanitary measures. Also relevant now is the preparation for the fire season in the forests: according to forecasts, it can be quite difficult.

“Forest fires are like seasonal colds: no matter how the authorities prepare for them, the forest still burns. And the statistics are disappointing because the taiga burns out, ” the speaker of the regional Parliament said.

Minister of Forestry of the Irkutsk region Sergey Sheverda, speaking at the hearing, said that since 2016 in the region burned almost 1 million hectares of forest. Most of the major forest fires occur in remote areas, where their elimination is carried out with the help of aviation. At the same time, the Forest code of the Russian Federation does not stipulate the obligation of forest land tenants to extinguish fires regardless of the forest protection zone.

According to Sergey Sheverda, the bulk of harvested timber is 28.4 million cubic meters accounts for tenants of forest plots, about 4 million cubic meters produced in the framework of contracts of purchase and sale, 2.7 million cubic meters are cut down during the construction of linear objects, 450 thousand cubic meters is allocated annually on preparation of citizens for their own needs, of which about 254 thousand cubic meters goes to heating. According to the Deputy Minister of economic development Marina Petrova, the volume of investment in the industry annually is about 18 billion rubles. Deputy head of the Federal tax service of Russia for the Irkutsk region Tatiana Shafran noted that from tax revenues in the forest sector in the region remains about 4.2 billion rubles. There is also a need to develop mechanisms for redistribution of profits in the industry – the bulk of it is formed after the sale of untreated wood.

“Twenty years ago, the regional budget was formed by almost 30% of revenues in the forest sector. Today we need to develop the production of deep processing of wood with high added value”,-said the Vice-speaker of the Legislative Assembly Olga Nosenko.

At the same time, the participants of the hearings noted difficulties in obtaining the support of the relevant investment projects at the regional level. This was stated by the heads of municipalities and representatives of sawn timber producers. The Deputy of regional Parliament Georgy Lysenkov proposed to consider the effectiveness of the implementation of investment projects in the forestry sector and the prospects of support for a new project at the site of the relevant Committee.

The Deputy of the legislative Assembly Larisa Egorova noted that the majority of illegal logging is carried out on leased forest plots, therefore, in her opinion, it is necessary to develop a mechanism for termination of contracts with unscrupulous tenants. According to Sergey Cheverda, in fact, the legislation provides for the possibility of termination of such contracts only in the courts, and it takes about two years. Only 63 contracts have been terminated in the last three years.

The Deputy of the regional Parliament Artem Lobkov drew attention to the lack of necessary control over reforestation. He was supported by the mayor of Ust-Ilimsky district Yakov Makarov, according to which, properly reforestation work is carried out only by large tenants, and proposed to consider the possibility of transferring the responsibility for carrying out these works to the level of forestry. Another significant problem, according to the mayor, is the low material and technical provision of most tenants with fire-fighting equipment and equipment, which does not allow them to effectively deal with forest fires. More than 50% of the forests are leased in Kachug district, and the representative of the district administration noted the almost complete lack of work on clearing the cutting area. But, she said, not only the strong clutter of the forest leads to fires but also the fact that sawmill waste is burned. It was proposed to amend the legislation and limit the possibility of using this method of clearing the cutting area. According to the Ministry of Forestry, in 2018, the damage from forest fires amounted to more than 1 billion rubles, and in peak 2016 – 9 billion rubles.

Speaking about the existing difficulties that reduce the level of control in the forest sector, Sergey Sheverda noted that annually 50 thousand cutting areas are introduced, as many other areas are being reforestation, at least once each cutting area should be checked by the inspector, but today only 631 people work. In turn, the Baikal interregional environmental Prosecutor Sergei Zenkov and a member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation from the Irkutsk region Sergey Brilka noted that the government did not come out with an initiative to increase funding to strengthen control in the forest sector or to conduct forest management work in a larger volume.

“Today it is obvious that the Ministry does not have full information – neither about the necessary response measures nor about the volume of illegal logging. Today in the forest there is no owner”, – says Sergey Zenkov.

Also, participants of Deputy hearings touched upon the issue of allocation of wood to citizens for their own needs. So, according to the mayor of Zhigalovsky district Igor Fedorovsky, in one of the most forested areas of the region, there is no forest to build a house, for example, for a teacher or a doctor. According to the mayor, there is a need to revise the mechanism of allocation of quotas for the allocation of wood for construction and the role of municipalities in this process. Their comments and suggestions were also voiced by representatives of the one in the Irkutsk region, the all-Russian society for nature protection, the public chamber of the Irkutsk region, the Department of Rosprirodnadzor in the region.

Summing up the discussion, Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Kuzma Aldarov stressed that the development of the forest industry and respect for natural resources have always been under the control of the deputies, and much has been achieved on the initiative of parliamentarians. We are talking, including on the legislative regulation of the activities of the shipping point and acceptance of the wood, the introduction of ID cards, the improvement of the law on the procurement of wood for own needs of citizens.

According to the press service of the Legislative Assembly