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Table of content:
PEOPLE MARCHING FOR PARKS AND PEOPLE HUNTING PARKS
In April 20-23 Main action for nature protection in CIS "March for
parks" has passed.
"March for Parks" is the CIS public movement uniting all layers of
society (business, media, state organs, local residents) around the idea of
supporting protected territories. The aim of the March is to drum up
public support for nature reserves and national parks. It gives everyone
the opportunity to find out as much as possible about protected territories
and national heritage of Russia and allows people to contribute personally
to safeguarding them for the future- either by donating money, taking part
in events or doing voluntary work.
March takes place in the Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia and all the Central
Asian republics.
The international aspect of the March all started with the Kostomukshsky
Nature Reserve which organised a joint March with Finns, closely followed
by Belovezhskaya Pushcha National Park which straddles Belarus and Poland.
The 'March for Parks' is gradually turning into the 'March for the
parks'.
The participation of NGOs in this action is growing. The Director of
Kerzhensky reserve E.N. Korshunova reports: "During the 2000 year reserves
have not been holding this event. The NGOs of Nizhny Novgorod have been
arranging it and we have just been guests". This is what we have been
striving for from the start- that reserves and parks should be guests at
this celebration of their work.
When the March was born in Biodiversity Conservation Center it was the
first positive conservation action in Russia - an event that was 'for' and
not 'anti'. Until that time NGOs only had experience of campaigning
'against' and were armed with whole cash of weapons to achieve that end.
March became a great example of positive action for nature conservation,
but as wild nature is constantly threatened by the people with axe, gun or
whatever NGOs in CIS have to proceed with "anti" campaigns even in March
for Parks days.
While some people put their efforts to support protected areas and draw
public attention to their problems, others keep destroying everything
around. State forest units of Ukraine "participated' in the action in a
very special way - they provided clearcuts in a buffer zone of Lugansk
Nature Reserve.
If the clear-cutting is completed, the nature reserve will get isolated
from its natural environment. The unique part of the Ukrainian wild steppes
with more than 170 rare species of animals and plants is posed under the
threat.
The officials of the forest division state that the aim of their activity
is to create the fire protection rows. But this argument is very dubious,
because such rows are already exist not far from the cutting area. In
reality this cutting could be explained by great commercial value of the
timber in the nature reserve protection area. Additionally, such rows
provide an "extra service" for the poachers: it's more convenient for them
to shoot animals in the cleared area than inside the deep forest.
The environmentalists are planning to appeal to the state authorities
demanding to stop the clear-cutting in the Lugansk nature reserve
protection area.
THE SUPREME COURT PUT RUSSIAN CITIZENS IN THEIR PLACE
Last year Russian President Vladimir Putin has eliminated the existing
environment protection system of the country. The Decree he issued on the
17th of May 2000 eliminated the Environmental Protection Committee and
Federal Forest Service, passing their functions to the different
ministries, mainly to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Joining the
functions of environmental resource use and control over this use will lead
to no good. It is almost the same as letting the fox guard the hen house.
The initiative group of Russian environmentalists with a help of
concerned people in regions collected more than 2,5 mln of signatures for
the referendum to restore and re-establish an environmental control in the
country and to stop project of nuclear waste import to Russia.
Russian Supreme Court followed in Putin's footsteps and made its
contribution in destroying Russian system of environmental control. The
court refused a complaint of initiative group of national environmental
referendum. The complaint was brought by the group after the Central
Election Commission found a big part of the signatures collected for the
referendum invalid for technical reasons such as the name of the region
missed, etc.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) in November 2000 has killed the
referendum. Citing numerous technical inaccuracies, the Central Elections
Commission struck off more than a fifth of the signatures collected across
the country, leaving the environmentalists with just over 1.873 million
signatures - 127,000 short of the 2 million needed to force a referendum.
The technical formalities CEC reffered to were not even mentioned in any
relevant legislation, people collecting signatures tried to be as much
accurate as possible but dealing with thousands of papers in a very short
time is a very hard task for one or two people responsible for the
processing of the documents. (According to the requirements there should be
just 5 signatures on one sheet of paper and all of them must be verified
and signed by the responsible person!)
These technical things for Russian authorities is a worthy reason to
ignore people's answers on the the following questions of the referendum:
1. Do you agree that import of radioactive waste for storage, disposal
and processing should be banned?
2. Do you agree that Russia should have an institution responsible for
environmental protection separate from institutions responsible for nature
use and management?
3. Do you agree that Russia should have a legally independent Forest
Service?
The only opportunity for environmentalists now to defend the rights of
people who put their signatures for the referendum is to bring a new
complaint in Presidium of the Supreme Court which ahs a right to revise the
decision of the Supreme Court. If it doesn't work we will go to the
International Court, - says Vladimir Chuprov, member of the initiative
group.
Additional information: http://www.forest.ru/eng/problems/control
CRIMINAL CODE GETTING TOUGHER TOWARDS ILLEGAL LOGGERS
In April Russian State Duma approved amendments to Criminal Code. The
changes are related to illegal cutting. Since now one that cut trees
without legal permission will have to pay from 500 up to 1000 minimal
salaries or will be put into jail for a period up to 3 years.
Unfortunately, in Russia illegal wood logging has become a usual thing,
and in some regions the share of illegal timber in the total turnover of
logged wood is getting more and more significant. Even a rough analysis
shows that at least 20% of timber in Russia is getting logged either illegally or
severely violating the existing legislation.
Russian forest legislation has always been very sophisticated and was
never implemented. Criminal Code contains an article about illegal logging
but since this article was introduced there were only few criminal cases
brought by the state. "Professional" poacher is not the one as Russians say
to be caught by the hand.
According to greens it doesn't seem possible to solve the problem of
illegal forest felling operations until both buyers and sellers of forest
products close the illegally logged timber from entering the market.
For further information:
Alexey Morozov, Survey of Illegal Forest Felling Activities in Russia
(forms and methods of illegal cuttings)
http://www.forest.ru/eng/publications/illegal
FOREST.RU QUESTIONING PEOPLE
Forest Club has put a public questionnaire on its Internet site
www.forest.ru/rus/vote. Visitors of the site got a chance to express their
opinion on the hot forest problems. People were asked if they agree with
export of raw timber from Russia - 80 per cent are against.
Second question was about private ownership for forests that may soon be
introduced - 40 per cent are against and 32,7 per cent think that it should
be discussed more with all the stakeholders. Forest Club will continue the
Internet poll and publish the results.
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