Tricks about protected forests
Although the system of protected areas is relatively well developed in Russia, the figures of the officially protected forests could be often tricky, especially on the regional level. Hearing nice talks from Russian authorities You have to remember:
- There is a big share among protected areas, which have weak protection regime. Only 2-3% of Russia’s territory are really protected against logging and mining development - mainly strict scientific nature reserves (so-called zapovedniks) and parts of national parks.
The situation with regional protected areas is often more problematic. Many regional level protected areas are sometimes not well documented and often is not taken into consideration while planning forestry and mining activities.
While data on protected areas of all cathegories for the whole Russia is unavailable,
our case study for four forest production regions of the European Russia shows that only 3.1% of the regions’ territory is really protected against logging while 11.6% has been reported by official sources. Look The Last of The Last Report for more information on this issue.
- The so-called First Group of forests does NOT mean protection as it is often advartized by Russian authorities. Industrial logging are prohibited only in 12.7% of the First Group forests while even intensive thinning is mostly allowed. In the rest of 87.3% industrial forestry is only restricted - even clearcuts are allowed in many categories.
- Official statistic figures on protected areas is tricky for many regions. Some protected forests cathegories overlap. Thus, protected areas and First Group forests overlap rather often while authorities sometimes calculate the same area twice.
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