Forest Club model projects and sites

Issue 8-9, Nov. 1998

Editorial note: We have published materials devoted to the problems of forestry and export of wood in sought regions of Russia. Here we continue with this subject

Illegal export of fine wood is a kind of subject that alarms public, authorities and media. In Sochi the author participated in checking the timber from one of the stores in Sochi. The check was run by city managers, economic violations bureau and Sochinskij National Park.

As was reported later by Igor Shakhov the chief of municipal park bureau of administration there were 1600 m3 of chestnut timber (23 cars) arrived at Sochi and assigned for export to Turkey. The timber was loaded on Kriven'kovskaya station of Tuapsinskij rayon, the receiver was one of commercial enterprises in Sochi.

«According to the Krasnodarskij Kraj and Sochi municipal law in effect, round wood can be exported only with special permission of bureau of forestry of Krasnodarskij Kraj – explained Igor Shakhov. – There was no such document in this case».

The fact that timber had been registered as exportable sawn wood was also suspicious for law-enforcement officers. The chief of the enterprise-recipient confirmed that timber is for Sochi and not for export abroad. But marking and dressing each stem as sawn wood thus seems useless.»

One of illustrative actions of customer's agent was emphasizing the definition of sawn wood «wood of a given size and quality with at least two plain parallel sides. GOST 18288-87, table 1, article 5.» This letter was circulated in leskhozes on behalf of Department of Forest Conservation of Krasnodarskij Kraj. The photograph shows how this definition can be used by businessmen. This is a «lumber» pile (a cant with two plain parallel sides) ready for export.

«Why the Caucasus unique nature resource becomes «shadow» timber? – wonders E. Satcunkevich («Volnaya Kuban'» March 11 1998). The forest life is still an unlucky train of events. In a seven years the actual harvest fell from 801 to 150 thousands m3 whereas prescribed cut is 950 thousands m3 and reforestation came up from 4200 to 4600 ha. But it is good neither for foresters nor for ecologists. It is crisis for the former and spoil of the resources for the latter.

Businessmen hurried to take advantage of President edict of March 6 1995 «About main principles of foreign-trade implementation in Russian Federation» and assailed to cut the most valuable tree species for export it as a round wood. This species are oak, beech, ash, wild pear and sweet chestnut that grow only on North Caucasus. The felling plan has changed immediately. In 1994 the 40 thousands m3 were exported and 374 40 thousands m3 were actually harvested. IN 1997 the export was 60 thousands m3 from 150b actually harvested (data of Krasnodarskij Kraj bureau of forestry). In reality situation could be worse.

«External harvesters works only on select cutting. This withdrawal of best trees damages incorrigible the forest ecosystems» - wrote Director General of «Apsheronsklesprom»public company to the Krasnodarskij Kraj Legislative Assembly two years before. – The set system of dealers is another point showing that the problem is really acute.»

The proximity of borders and ports to valuable wood forests allows bulk timber exportation by Turkish trucks directly from the forest facilitates criminal structures activity, stealage, cuttings without license». It is only one argument for prohibition of round wood export from a set of documents sent to the Krasnodarskij Kraj Legislative Assembly two years ago.

The Head of Russian Federal Forestry Service Shubin V. declared the official attitude towards the problem. In his speech on ORT he said «non of self-respecting countries exports round wood»…

But the contravention have not been stopped…

Functionaries talk about the problem, lawmakers pass acts, ecologists write articles and businessmen continue with cutting and exporting wood. Now shipping are mostly at night and the main part of round wood is transported back-way.

«Oak, fir, beech, chestnut forest of Kuban are cut for moment profit – «businessmen» export round hardwood and softwood timber and do not care that cuts will become wetlands, friable sands and wastelands. Therewith the violations of revenue laws are usual.

So, what happens under the canopy of Kuban forest?

There are 36 leskhoses in Krasnodarskij Kraj. 25 leskhoses are subordinate to Krasnodar forestry administration hereby they are federal agency. 11 are subordinate to Krasnodar enterprise «Kubanmezhkhozles» and don't have their own forest territories. Besides that two military leskhoses possesses more than 30 thousands ha.

The total cubic content of exported chestnut wood exceeds that in timber licenses, if one compare data of North Caucasus Bureau of State Custom Committee and Krasnodar forestry administration. The difference could be explained by that fact that very often forest is cut without felling license. Goslesoxrana fail to prevent all this violations because of lack of people and power. It can check timber transport only on the territory of forest fund. Krasnodarskij Kraj Legislative Assembly decreed that enterprises manufacturing timber in Kraj must have concession on forest tax. Extra payment and special passes was decreed for round wood exporters.

In April 1997 the head of administration issued a decree with specific measures of control for commercial round timber transport. Twelve day-and-night police posts were working specially of checking timber transport.

But by all accounts of Economy and Prognostication Department of the Kraj 70 m3 of valuable hardwood timber were exported from Kuban in last year, all without license. It cost the budget more than sixteen milliard rubles.

In 1995 total timber export from Krasnodarskij Kraj cost 16 million dollars, in 1996 it was 20 million dollars. The profit is obvious. The underside is reduction of tax-paying base, unemployment growth in timber processing industry and allied industries, creating social strain in forestry communities.

Practically no stock gangs work in Krasnodarskij Kraj because they are not profitable. The foreign demand is only for round wood.

The round wood export is more economical and sociological than ecological problem. It certainly cannot be out of tax police sight.

«Recently tax police have terminated series of tax law violations by enterprises connected with forest. 11,9 billion rubles was allowed to different level budgets and five cases were brought.

We interviewed the colonel of tax police Alexander Grigorevich Ulko.

- Alexander Grigorevich, why they export round wood?

- It is very profitable, the costs are minimal – for cutting and transporting.

- And how mach firms are foresters of that kind?

- There are about 200 firms and enterprises extracting timber, but the most interesting is that nobody of them is official exporter. There are intermediate enterprises, which buy timber from other enterprises or private persons

- Why do private persons have timber?

- People in villages are not well-off. The easiest way to get some money is to sell timber.

- It is not easy to catch every woodcutter, but you can control lading.

- It is often done under the fictitious documents of firms registered beyond the Kraj.

The forest should be harvested but it must not be timber mining. So the first task is to stop this plunder. I think there will be several criminal trials and compensations to budget.

We are responsible whether our children will see this forests or not.

In 1996 through custom committees of Kraj has been exported:

Oak – 55521 m³
Beech – 49873 m³
Chestnut – 22177 m³

In 1997:

Oak – 39619.2 m³
Beech – 21576.71 m³
Chestnut – 14695.23 m³

How it will be in 1998?

But forest service? Government regulatory body must prevent contempt of the law in the forest. Here we place fragments of interview with head forester of Krasnodar bureau of forestry, Eugenij Zelenko.

- Eugenij Iosifovich, how does your department struggle against defalcators? Have you any mechanism of violations preventing?

- We have, but it is not 100 percent effective. Militia and Cossacks help us but it is not enough. The first problem is lack of staff; the second is insufficient equipment – 300 smoothbore guns. Both problems are because of insufficient support. The main difficulty is that unemployed people are ready to cut forest in any time of day and night, perfectly realizing that it is illegal. That year it was 412 cases of illegal cutting and more than half of violators were caught.

- What punishment is prescribed for illegal cut?

- That is another sort of problem. This people are doers, not customers. Unemployed people cannot pay fine.

- Why do you need guns?

- People are different. They can be aggressive. In 1997 there were 33 cases of attacking forest service. I'll describe one. The jaeger in Sochinskij National Park Gennadij Maksimov meet a breaker. When he was asked what he was doing there the criminal begin to shoot. Maksimov was injured in the region of the heart. After several seconds he recover consciousness and saw the back of the criminal. Maksimov managed to shoot at him and kill him. His colleagues came at sounds of shooting and took Maksimov to hospital that saved his life. The investigation conclude that Maksimov acted within law.

In Adygea the situation is similar. («Sovetskaya Adygeya» March 4 1998. D. Krylov)

Talking about forestry K.S. Afasizhev (the chairman of college of forestry of Adygea Republic) emphasized that reclamation of forest fund of final cutting is 17.4% in this year because difficult situation of forestry enterprises. It is the case of difficulties in leskhozes.

Improvement cutting in young growth forest are fulfilled on 105%, environmental harvesting, select sanitary felling are done on 94%. But not all leskhoses are fulfilling forest management. Some of them do even 150 or 130 percent of it and some are not cutting at all. The main cases to stop cutting is lack of control from head foresters, low level of organization, lack of support.

K.S. Afasizhev analyzed the questions of forest preservation. In the last year there were 10 registered cases of illegal cutting. The main part of violators are still unknown. The equipment of forest service is insufficient in comparison of poachers. There is still no militia post in Majcopskij rayon. This looks strange after effective reports about overfulfilment of plan on intermediate cuttings. May be the problem is not equipment but foresters harvesting wood. It is not very likely that this region dramatically differs from other.

But not all news from forest sector is so pessimistic. Among little good news are materials of I. Sizov in «Lesnaya Gazeta». This issue has treaded on the ground of forest export in the ports of Black Sea….

Absurdity of all this trade economical operations is obvious. Krasnodarskij Kraj when selling round wood waste milliard income. Many people are sealed to unemployment. Kuban gradually becomes primary resources pendicle of First World.

But there is an exception from this sad picture. A phone call from Belorechensk:

-Hallo, is this «Lesnaya gazeta»? My name is Eugenij Shulik; I am the head of administration of Belorechenskij rayon. You have written several times about necessity of retrofitting of departments of timber treatment. We have build new factory for deep timber treatment. Now we are just finishing balancing and commissioning».

This new factory «Garda» proved to be excellent. Big lightweight construction shops. New equipment. Gas automatic boiler, eight kilns and only one operator. Veneer shop, department of furniture façades, storage of ready production with neatly packed desks. An enterprise of a new vintage.

- In the sought-west part of Krasnodarskij Kraj there is a lot of forests, - commented this the general director of «Garda» Vyacheslav Shemigo, - in Apsheronskij, Tuapsinskij, Mostovskij and Belorechenskij. All leskhozes can bring their production to our factory instead of exporting. Our production will be up to the world standard.

-Will your production be salable?

-We have already a lot of requests. New furniture and building enterprizes begin to arise. I finished information gaining in the administration of Belorechensk. In the department of labor supplies using I was reported that new factory gives 300 workplaces. In the department of building they are also enthusiastic, because wooden details for building will be much cheaper. The most hopeful talk was one in fiscal inspection.

- Formerly the main taxpayer was Belorechenskij chemistry integrated activity. Now this enterprise is having a hard fight to make the two ends meet. Now new taxpayers are coming, they are mostly enterprises of middle size. Three of four more will allow the rayon to be better off….

[So let's hope that commercials and authorities of federal and Kraj level will join their efforts for creating converting industry in the region. The author subscribes this hope.]