They want to take forest management from the regions and farmers and transfer it to the state. The All-Russian Popular Front (ONF) warns that tens of millions of hectares of forests in Russia may be under threat because they do not belong to the forest fund. Public activists sent a letter with a proposal to return the forests to state ownership to the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Victoria Abramchenko, as well as to the relevant committees of the State Duma, Izvestia became aware.
In the USSR, on the territories of state farms and collective farms there were not only fields and farms with livestock, but also infrastructure, forests, roads, ponds, director of the ANO Green Civilization, academician of MANEB, former Minister of Forestry of the Ulyanovsk region Dmitry Fedorov told Izvestia.
All these objects were serviced through a single control center. In the 1990s, the form of ownership changed, and many such enterprises were privatized. Entrepreneurs put economic efficiency at the forefront, and this, for example, is the cultivation of rye and wheat, but not the care of forest areas, the academician explained.
In the early 2000s, when legislation and the land accounting system changed, forest areas on the territories of former collective farms and state farms were transferred to the regions and lost their federal status. Now they are located mainly on agricultural land and are not protected from mass cutting, according to the appeal of the ONF to Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko and the relevant committees of the State Duma.
“Kolkhoznye forests” were transferred, among other things, to the disposal of regional government bodies and lost their status. As a result, forest areas are constantly under the threat of uncontrolled logging, follows from a letter from public figures.
The authors of the initiative call for a re-inventory of forests growing on agricultural land as soon as possible so that its uncontrolled cutting becomes impossible. The organization’s appeal states that “it is necessary to speed up a complete inventory of forests located on agricultural lands and on lands of unidentified categories, ensuring their transfer to the forest fund. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the expediency of preserving such forests in each specific case.
“The appeal of the ONF will be considered upon receipt. But I would be more careful about the statements about the alleged mass deforestation on agricultural land, ”Marta Galicheva, a representative of Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, told Izvestia.
Former collective farm forests do not have to be converted into forest fund lands, which, unlike agricultural lands, can only be federally owned, she said.
To regulate the issue of using forests as part of agricultural land, the government adopted Decree No. 1509 in 2020. In such areas, it is possible to engage in plantation forestry or implement climate projects, Marta Galicheva added.
Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:
Hand over trunks: they want to return agricultural forests to the state
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
