What are official figures about forests in Russia?

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What are official figures about forests in Russia?

The total statistic on Russian forests is gathered, calculated and published one time in five years. The last official data have been gathered for the moment of 1^st January 1998. However, this data are not available yet being under processing. The All-Russian Research and Information Center for forest Resources (VNIITSLesresurs) responsible for total calculating promises to publish the results this year (1999) but has not finished yet. So, now only data for 1^st January of 1993 are available.

Looking at these data we have to remember that the forest legislation has been sufficiently changed since that time. In January 1993 neither the today’s Forest Code (1997) nor the previous Basics of Forest Legislation (1993) were not adopted yet. The soviet time Forest Code of Russian Federation (1978/79) was still active. Also statistic regulations were a bit different then today. So, such today’s land categories as “Forests Not Belonging to Forest Fund” and “tree-bushy vegetation”on some types of lands did not exist. (You could see the "How are Russian forests structured?” page for more details.)

Basic statistical figures about Russian Forest Fund for the 1^st January of 1993
(published in 1995). All figures in thousands hectares.

–	Russia, total	Under Rosleskhoz jurisdiction, total	Temporary passed from Rosleskhoz to other land-users	Under own management of Rosleskhoz, total	Under own management of Rosleskhoz, Europen part of Russia	Under own management of Rosleskhoz, Asian part of Russia
Total Forest Fund area	1180881.6	1110481.6	133092.0	977389.6	168170.5	809219.1
– Forest Lands area	886538.4	825188.5	69968.1	755220.4	139124.1	616096.3
Lands Covered by Forest	763502.0	705789.2	50800.9	654988.3	132340.7	522647.6
Young Forest Plantations	–	3806.1	12.7	3793.4	2729.8	1063.6
Seedling Planting Areas	–	55.3	0.2	55.1	45.4	9.7
Natural Rare-Standing Trees Areas	–	115537.9	19154.3	41439.3	0.0	41439.3
Lands Non-Covered by Forest	–	115537.9	19154.3	54944.3	4008.2	50936.1
– Non-Forest Lands area	–	285293.1	63123.9	222169.2	29046.4	193122.8

The category of the Forest Fund lands temporary passed to other land-users does not exist in new adopted regulations any more. In soviet time it meant the lands passed for free from Forest Service to other state agencies. The biggest part of that 133.1 millions of hectares lands were passed to pit mining enterprises and military structures (plus to Forest Fund lands under full Defense Ministry jurisdiction). The today’s status of these lands is not clear enough yet. According the special governmental (Rosleskhoz) order, these lands should be returned to Rosleskhoz or rearranged as rented areas. As far as we know, this has been done not everywhere.

The figure of 763.5 millions of hectares we stressed by red is one, which You could most often find in different official and international sources. It is used to calculate the forestation (percentage of total country area covered by forests) for Russian Federation – 44.7%. The same figures for European and Asian parts of Russia are, according official statistic, 38.5% and 46.7%.

However, it is rather difficult to compare this figure with international standards, for example, with UN Food and Agriculture Organistion’s one. To learn more about how forest is defined by Russian official regulations and what this figures mean look at the “What is the official Russian definition what forest is?” page.