Timber left on the logging sites
Support for environmentally friendly, socially responsible and
sustainable forest managementThe state has owned and managed
forests in Russia for almost two centuries. During this time a
powerful bureaucratic apparatus (employing about 250 thousand
people) has developed and no country in the world can compete with
Russia in the numbers of various forest officials. The country has
sophisticated forest legislation, so complicated and intricate that
even forest industry employees can hardly work with it (no wonder,
all active forest laws and industrial regulations are written on
about 10,000 typewritten pages).
Russian forest industry also takes the first place in many
aspects. The forest industry enterprises employ about 800 thousand
people. Each year they log some 150 million cubic meters of timber
and in the 1960's this figure was twice as big. Only six countries
(USA, China, India, Indonesia, Canada and Brazil) outlog Russia
(some 30 years ago Russia was the leader). What gives Russia these
enormous logging amounts?
In efficiency of timber use Russia lags far behind. One cubic
meter of timber in Russia gives products worth ten time less than,
say, in Scandinavian countries. From each cubic meter of timber
forest sector employees receive salaries 20 times lower than in
other countries. In other words, to produce a unit of finished
product Russian forest industry logs 10 times more timber than in
neighboring Finland.
Types of cuttings applied in Russian forestry are also far from
being perfect, at least from the standpoint of environmental
protection. Over 80% of timber in Russia is logged in clear
cuttings and in most forests clear cuttings are permitted in large
areas (over 50 ha). These logging practices cause largest possible
damage to the environment and in large areas ancient forests are
replaced with birch and aspen forests. The total annual clear
cutting area in Russia is 20 times bigger than the territory of
Moscow. Logging carried out in the last 100 years have largely
exhausted accessible and most productive forests in Russia, which
results in that many forest industry companies are facing shortages
of accessible high quality timber.
The outcome is quite obvious: poor forest settlements of jobless
people, salaries that at best are enough to provide water and
bread, out-of-date machinery and back-breaking labor conditions of
forest industry employees. And more: constant lack of funds on
forest protection and conservation resulting in regular forest
fires, piles of litter along forest roads, illegal logging, no
funds on normal reforestation and young forest maintenance.
It is rather difficult to improve the existing situation. First
of all, it is necessary to understand that logging should not be
growing (this what "forest generals" from the Natural Resources
Ministry want). It should efficiently use what is cut. More cutting
is already impossible in Russia: economically accessible forests
have been largely exhausted, while cutting remote northern and
Siberian forests will only result in more losses. And it is a must
that considerable investments should go to restoration and
maintenance of valuable forests. Otherwise, in 10 to 20 years
Russian forest industry will die. Russia should reject exports of
round timber (this is where Russia is taking the first place) as
this type of export brings profits only to those countries that
process this timber afterwards. Not all agree to the above, though:
round timber exports "feed" lots of officials as most unregistered
incomes come from this type of exports (in round timber exports it
is very difficult to determine precisely the quality and price of
exported timber at the customs).