New felling rules may deplete Ukraine’s forests
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While many are concerned about the fate of forests on the front line, the state plans to finish off the remaining forests in the “rear” areas. Last year, the Minister of Environmental Protection, Ruslan Strelets, and some other officials spoke about the intention to increase the amount of felling. Now they are preparing the legal basis for this. Yes, it is officially allowed to cut down forests in Ukraine: foresters annually cut down 20 million cubic meters of wood. They would cut more, but there are many environmental restrictions in the legislation. Such restrictions are not enough to preserve the biodiversity of our forests, but they do somewhat curb the appetites of the forestry industry. In 2022, foresters have already tried to remove some of the environmental restrictions on felling, but without success (with the exception of the quiet season, which the parliament did cancel). Recently, the State Forestry Agency started another attempt: at the end of March, foresters published a draft of the new Rules for felling in the forests of Ukraine (we will refer to them simply as the Rules). If the document is adopted without changes, it will be the beginning of the end for Ukrainian forests. Foresters propose to remove from the legislation almost everything that prevents them from logging anywhere and anytime. For example, the forest industry proposes to simplify sanitary felling: to cancel restrictions on solid sanitary felling in high-altitude Carpathian forests; to allow sanitary felling of trees important for biodiversity; cancel the limit of planned felling if too much sanitary felling is carried out. The problem is that, under the guise of sanitary felling, foresters often cut down healthy forests, where planned felling is limited – in particular, in the Carpathians or in protected areas. At the end of 2020, the Ministry of Environment introduced new restrictions that somewhat reduced the abuse of these fellings – and it is precisely them that foresters want to abolish. The new Rules create a lot of problems with other types of felling. For example, with regard to main-use felling: the requirements for selective and gradual felling are relaxed: this will allow such felling to be carried out in hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests, where it was previously prohibited to conduct such felling; requirements for continuous felling are relaxed. Foresters propose only abstract limits on these most biodiversity-damaging cuttings. For example, what do you think of the phrase that solid felling can be carried out in forests “in which gradual or selective felling can lead to windfall of trees”? In fact, it is anywhere, at the discretion of the forester himself. In addition, they plan to allow more solid logging for main use in the Carpathians; it is proposed to allow continuous felling under the guise of gradual felling. Another big problem of the new Rules is various types of felling, such as “reforestation”, “performing”, “reconstructive” and so on. The rules for carrying out such fellings, which are offered by foresters, are a pure abstraction. Therefore, they can be held almost anywhere. Imagine the situation: an ancient forest in the Carpathians. Extremely valuable from the point of view of nature protection. For example, the law prohibits logging there for the main use. No question, foresters can carry out sanitary felling. Problems with sanitary logging, because activists were tortured? It is not a question, the foresters will conduct a reshaping felling. Can’t reformat? Landscape felling will be carried out. Or some other. Ukrainian forest legislation is currently full of various loopholes – almost any forest can be cut legally or semi-legally. Just recently, we discovered how in the Carpathians thousands of hectares of ancient forests are being destroyed by logging operations. With the new Logging Rules, the situation will become many times worse! Even protected forests will be under threat. Maybe the new document introduces something good for forests? No, don’t even hope. The State Forestry Agency almost completely rejected the proposals of nature protection organizations to include more biodiversity-friendly norms in the legislation. For now, the new felling Rules are only a draft. Decision by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. It depends on him whether the document will be adopted in its unchanged form, or whether the biodiversity of Ukrainian forests will still have a chance to exist. But, taking into account last year’s statements of the Minister of Environmental Protection, there is no certainty in the Ministry’s decisions. It is possible that soon the forests of the “rear” Ukraine will not be too different from the forests on the front line. Yehor Hrynyk, biologist, Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group (UNCG), specially for UP. Life Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect exclusively the author’s point of view.
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