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Reducing illegal logging requires effectively addressing
macroeconomic challenges beyond the forest sector, especially
the problems of unemployment and low incomes in rural
areas.
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A number of steps can be taken, however, to help
improve enforcement and make progress towards halting the
destruction of Russia’s remarkable forest heritage:
• Establish a public council under the auspices of the
Government of Russia that works with the active
participation of a coalition of leading environmental
organizations and that has the authority to monitor and
control forest management.
• Maximize the openness and transparency of forest legal
documentation as well as information about obtaining
the right to use and manage forest resources. Make this
information public and freely available on the Internet
and ensure the active involvement of environmental
organizations and local communities. The information
should include forest plans for each administrative territory
of the Russian Federation, public consultations regarding
the plans, forest management regulations for all forests
across the country and a list of all logging sites that are in
use, with geo-referenced borders.
• Promote public participation in the allocation of forest
rights (rent, gratuitous uses, sales contracts, etc.) and
public supervision and control of the execution of these
decisions.
• Register in a ‘cadastre’ (state property registration system)
all the country's forests, especially forests with mercantile
timber and those with valuable tree species.
• Develop a state-operated e-governance accounting system
for timber.
• Increase the number and powers of the state forest
protection service. Ensure constant patrolling of forests that
are particularly attractive to illegal loggers.
• Encourage the spread of independent forest certification
systems (FSC, PEFC and others).
• Prohibit logging, and leasing of timber properties for
logging, in ‘specially protected forests’, for example, in
pine-nut harvesting and hunting zones, nut and berry forest
plantations, etc.
• Prohibit residents from selling timber harvested for their
own needs.
• Promote expanded cooperation with customs authorities in
countries bordering the Russian Federation.
RECOMMENDED MEASURES TO REDUCE ILLEGAL LOGGING