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5.4 RussiaCurrent Ownership, Administration, and UseForest land of the State Forest Fund in Northern European Russia totals 68.7 million ha of the total forest land of the Murmansk Oblast, the Karelia Republic, Arkhangelsk Oblast, and the Komi Republic. In Russia the state owns all forest land. The Constitution dictates that forest resources (including forests) are to be managed jointly by federal and regional authorities. In practice, forest management is mostly performed by various federal governmental agencies (Federal Forest Service, Committee for Environment Protection, Ministry for Agriculture and Food, Ministry of Defense, etc.). Forests on former collective farms (now private agricultural cooperatives) are owned by the state but not managed by the state authorities. These areas are leased with no payment under a special legal status (bezvozmezdnoe polzovanie). Forests and other lands designated for forestry comprise the State Forest Fund of the Russian Federation (FF). FF consists of forest lands (on which forest grows or may grow, including burns, cutovers, and tracts, where it failed to regenerate) and non-forest lands (agricultural lands, settlements, infrastructure, and "non forests", such as bogs, rock outcrops, gullies etc.). In turn, forest lands are divided in lands with stocked and unstocked forest stands. There are also some forest lands outside of the official FF, such as city forests and forests under management of the Ministry of Defense. In Russia, forests of the FF are divided into forest management groups (Table 7). Group I forests are ecologically valuable forests mostly intended for the performance of environmental functions. Economic use in Group I forests is restricted; however, final felling is prohibited only on about one-third. The majority of Group I forest permit economic activities, such as intensive thinning and recreation. Many of these forests currently experience severe human impact, e.g., roadside forests were heavily exploited earlier. Group II forests are forests in strongly developed and densely populated areas and areas with a low degree of forest cover. Group III forests are intended for commercial forestry. Table 7. Land management in the Forest Fund and other forests in Northern European The Russian forestry and environmental legislation is quite complex and has just been undergone revision. At the federal level the relevant acts are the Forest Code (adopted in 1997), the Environmental Protection Act, the Protected Areas Act, the Animal World Act, the Environmental Expertise Act (environmental impact assessments), and a few others. In addition there exist regional adaptations of these acts such as the Karelian Forest Code. There are also a large number of norms dictating practical applications of the code adopted on the federal and regional levels. Russian System of Protected AreasRussian forests can be protected by several mechanisms as designated in accordance to the Environmental Protection Act (1991) and the Protected Areas Act (1995). Those, which are relevant for this inquiry, are: zapovedniks, national parks, nature parks, zakazniks, and nature monuments. A brief description of the different characteristics of these regimes is provided below. This description is much more detailed than that given for Fennoscandia due to the emerging nature of the subject and the importance in understanding the details of the overall protection regime for forests in Russia. The description of the different protection regimes is followed by an analysis of the regimes and current protection status. A zapovednik is a strict nature reserve under exclusive federal ownership and management. Officially no human activity apart from some scientific research, inventories and monitoring is allowed in a zapovednik. Recently limited tourism under strict supervision is beginning to be allowed in some zapovedniks. There are currently 99 zapovedniks established in Russia, covering a total area of 33.1 million hectares, including 26.7 million hectares of lands with inland waters, which is 1.56% of the total Russian's territory (Zapovedniks and National Parks Bulletin, 1998-1999). National parks are something slightly different in Russia compared to most western countries. The first national park was established in 1983. At present, Russia has 34 national parks, covering 6,8 million hectares, which is 0.39% of the total Russian territory (Zapovedniks and National Parks Bulletin, no. 23, 1998). National parks are exclusively federal level protected areas and established by the decision of the federal government. However, in comparison to zapovedniks, the lands inside a national park may have multiple land users and land use zones, e.g., Strict Protection Zone, Specially Protected Zone, Tourism and Recreation Zones, and Economic Zone. Nature parks are a new category of protected area first introduced with the Protected Areas Act in 1995. Nature parks are the analogue of the national parks on the regional level. As the national parks, nature parks may be divided into zones dictating different levels of protection and use. Zakazniks (refuges) are probably the most flexible category of protected areas in Russia. They can be created on regional or federal level to ensure protection of certain valuable areas, or survival of particular species of plants and wildlife. Their lands may, according to the Protected Areas Act, either belong to the zakaznik or be left under the management of the original landuser. Zakaznik landusers are responsible for keeping its protection and fulfilling the protection regime. Limitations on human activity may be as strict as in zapovedniks or permit full economic activity. Zakazniks can be either permanent, or temporary. In the latter case, zakazniks are created for a certain period of time (usually 10-15 years). The Protected Areas Act does not even mention the option for establishing temporary zakazniks. However, in areas under consideration they are still common. Nature monuments (pamyatniki prirody) include natural objects of special interest such as rock formations, champion trees, bird rookeries, or scenic landscapes. Traditionally they are relatively small and thus usually cannot provide an adequate degree of protection to the ecosystems. However, in the region of this inquiry there are a few rather large nature monuments with an area more than thousand hectares. Russian forest legislation also allows another mechanism for forest conservation. A special protective area (SPA) (osobo zashchitny uchastok) may be established in all forest classifications. SPAs are established by the regional governments and do not need a decision by the Federal Forest Service. SPAs can be used to protect the headwaters of rivers, riverbanks, erosion sensitive sites, etc. Some of the uses of the SPA mechanism appear, at least formerly, to be oriented towards biodiversity conservation. Traditionally, a SPA is rather small - a few, tens or hundreds of hectares. However, there is precedent of putting together a number of SPAs to form one larger area of protected land. There is another mechanism for protection of ecologically valuable forests in Russia. Through as special parliamentary decision, final logging in Siberian and Korean stone pine (Pinus sibirica and P. koraiensis) forests is prohibited. All forests with 30% and more of the stone pine trees are classified as stone pine forests. The Komi Republic has some stone pine forests. Current Protection StatusAs detailed above Russia has a number of mechanisms in place to protect forests. However, there are many limitations of the existing regime both in theory and practice. This section provides a brief analysis of the different mechanisms. Zapovedniks do not necessarily protect only old-growth or ecologically valuable forests. Secondary and disturbed forests are included in zapovedniks as well as many low-productive forests and non-forest ecosystems. In Northern European Russia zapovedniks which do protect some old-growth areas are Laplandskiy in Murmansk Oblast, Kostomukshskiy in the Karelia Republic, Pinezhskiy in Arkhangelsk Oblast and Pechoro-Ilychskiy in the Komi Republic. Kandalakshskiy Zapovednik in Murmansk Oblast protects mainly sea shores, islands, and water areas. Pasvik Zapovednik in Murmansk Oblast and Kivach Zapovednik in the Karelia Republic protect mainly secondary and disturbed forests.
The zoning system in the national park system is problematic. The economic zones and even often the recreational zones do not play a sufficient role in forest conservation, this is due to the fact that often national park administrations are pushing economic usage in general. According to the official data of the Protected Forests Department in the Federal Forest Service from spring 1999, 32% of total Russian national parks' income (not including the budget financing) originated not from visitors but from selling timber products. In four national parks this activity produces more than 70% of the parks own income (Zapovedniks and National Parks Bulletin, 1999). These figures show the scale of the logging operations in Russian national parks. The system of nature parks is very new and not all information is available. Currently there is no information available about the existence or status of any established nature park in the area of the mapping project. However, there are plans for establishing a few nature parks in the Karelian Republic. The most developed projects for now are the Sorokskiy Marine Nature Park, Zaonezhie Nature Park, Tulos Nature Park, Koitayoki Nature Park and Ladozhskie Shkhery Nature Park. The last one is also regarded as a candidate for a national park on the federal level. Unfortunately, the value of these nature parks in old-growth forest conservation is limited since only the Sorokskiy Nature Park includes some areas of White Sea shore old-growth forests. Some small areas of potentially valuable forests may also remain in the projected area of the Ladozhskie Shkhery Park. However, it is too early to discuss if the restrictions of the forestry activities in these parks will be adequate to the goals of old-growth forests protection. According to the information we have, Kozhozersky Zakaznik in Arkhangelsk Oblast has been now also converted to the nature park. However, this information is not complete yet. Zakazniks are the most widespread form of protected areas because they can be created much faster and easier than zapovedniks and national parks. There is no complete register of zakazniks for whole Russia. However, according to the different sources, Russia has currently more than 1,000 zakazniks totaling millions of hectares. Zakazniks constitute the majority of all protected areas in areas of historic industrial use. In many cases rapid designation of a zakaznik may save a valuable area, which later may be converted into a national park or zapovednik. Table 8. Protected Areas in Northern European Russia by official categories. The Table 8 represents the figures on the total size of protected areas by regions and official categories. The total sum is very impressive: about 11.6% of the total regions area looks to be protected according to the official data. However, the more detailed analysis shows the figures of real forest protection (Table 9). Only less than 5% of the area under consideration prohibit the final felling of forests. And only about 3% do provide an adequate forest protection against all kinds of destructive logging. Table 9. Protected Areas in Northern European Russia by protection regimes. With regards to Special Protective Areas (SPAs), the logging limitations for this protection mechanism are usually quite weak. Article 55 of the Forest Code only states "final felling MAY be prohibited in the SPA". So there is some possibility to set up a strict protection regime through this mechanism but only if the SPA is set up within the category, which prohibits all forest use. It is not entirely clear how this mechanism works legally. Also it is impotant that SPAs are governed by decision-making on the regional level, which may affect the security of sites protected as a SPA. In the case of the special legal protection for stone pine forests, this provision, unfortunately, does not manage to exclude all logging. Much logging in these forests happens under the title of "sanitary" logging. Practically all areas of Russia's stone pine forests are under great threat. As was briefly introduced earlier in this report, forests in Russia are legally designated as Group I, Group II or Group III. The primary function of Group I forests is "protective" from an ecological standpoint. However, what is often not understood is that Group I forests are not protected simply because they fall into this category. Official forest statistics separate out forests within this group as "possible for exploitation". Areas excluded from exploitation are forests on slopes greater than 30 degrees, forests along key fish spawning rivers, and forests deemed protecting waterways and at the sources of creeks and springs. According to the 1993 official data, more than half (53.5%) of the forested area designated as "protected" by Group I status was officially "possible for exploitation".
Among the first group protective categories, the subtundra forests are dominated in the area under consideration. We do not regard them as a real protected areas since the status of these forests means a relatively weak protection. The intermediate selective logging of low (10-20%) and medium (20-30%) intensity are prescribed here by forest regulations, as far as intermediate strips-shaped clearcuting (Directions for Intermediate Logging for Plain Forests of European Russia, article 7.7). At the same time the dominant part of the subtundra forests stay still untouched because of the low interest by timber industry. The high percentage of swamps among these lands (about 70%) and low productivity of these forests (the annual growth varies from 0.7 to 1.3 cubic meters per hectare) (Semenov et al., 1998) are probably the main reason for it. However, in all three regions with subtundra forests the timber industry operates now close to subtundra borders. Some enterprises are facing problems with new areas for harvesting and so may threat the subtundra forests. In the Murmansk region we know the precedents of the industrial harvesting in the subtundra belt made "as an exclusion" in the Soviet times. The geological exploration and mining activities widely developed in all three regions are another big threat for subtundra forests. For example, the large area of subtundra old-growth forests have been destroyed last years by diamond mining development in the Belomorsko-Kuloyskoe Uplands, Arkhangelsk Oblast. Inventory StatusThere are no special official inventories of key biotopes and old-growth forests available from the state in Russia. The most recent inventories made by the Federal Forest Service only assess forest areas for timber volume. These inventories map the age of stands and dominant tree species, as far as many parameters mostly practical for industry. Historically any inventories looking a biodiversity and conservation value have been made regionally by scientists and NGOs. Possibilities for Voluntary ProtectionTheoretically there are several possibilities for voluntary forest protection to be enacted in Northern European Russia. The Environmental Protection Act of 1991 permits commercial enterprises to form zakazniks on land they are using without any formal decision from the state. However, the Protected Areas Act does not repeat this statement and at this time there are no known regulations or normative documents backing up this provision in the 1991 regulations. Another possibility is to lease forest land for purposes other than timber exploitation. The new Regulations on Leasing of the Forest Fund Plots adopted in 1998 allow forest land to be leased for up to 49 years for purposes other than timber extraction: harvesting non-timber forest products; as a game area; as well as cultural, health and tourism purposes. One example of voluntary forest protection is the Muravyevskiy Nature Park in Amurskaya Oblast in the Russian Far East, which has been leased since 1993 by the Socio-Ecological Union formally for game purposes. The Russian Forest Code considers scientific purposes as an official forest use (article 80). Since 1996 a number of foreign companies active in Russia have signed on to a moratorium on purchasing timber from old-growth forests in the Karelia and Murmansk regions. This was an initiative started by NGOs working in the region. The moratorium may be regarded as a kind of voluntary forest protection. However, the companies supporting the moratorium do not own or lease the forests giving no real secure protection to the areas. CertificationVoluntary forest certification is in the beginning stages in Russia. The Federal Forest Service appears strongly opposed to a system of voluntary certification. Two model forests areas in Russia are currently awaiting a decision on their FSC certification status. One of these areas is in Komi at the WWF Priluzie model forest. Protection TargetsWWF Russia recommends to protect around 10% of forest areas. At this point WWF has not come with a mechanism and overall plan for how to accomplish this goal. For many NGOs in the region the percentage of protected area is not the main issue. What is an essential goal is that the integrity of a system and continuity of old-growth forest areas be maintained and protected as the backbone of an overall strategy for biodiversity and ecological viability in the region. The current complexity and confusion surrounding what the different protection schemes actually mean on paper and in practice and what protected areas might be counted as protecting old-growth forests make it almost impossible to set percentage-based protection schemes. The Biodiversity Conservation Center sees a possibility in creating an old-growth protection strategy by setting together some existing protected areas and working to change the status of other vital areas. Monetary Compensation for ProtectionThe Global Environmental Facility (GEF) of the World Bank Group allocated more than 20 million USD in 1994 towards biodiversity conservation in the Russian Federation. This funding is estimated to reach 26 million USD by the year 2002 (GEF 2000). This money has been distributed to the Ministry of the Environmental Protection and Natural Resources and the Federal Forest Service. A range of national and international NGOs and Russian universities have also received funding through the GEF for projects on a Russia-wide level. This funding is not set up expressly for the purpose of creating protected areas. It remains to be seen what this funding can do towards the protection of biodiversity in the Northern European Russian forests.
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