Is the Rada preparing a bill that would give unscrupulous lumberjacks a free hand?
Logging in the Carpathians and other forests can reach unprecedented proportions. The relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada approved a bill that abolishes the assessment of environmental impact during sanitary logging. If parliament votes for this, sticky-armed foresters will be able to sell industrial wood for firewood, and put the 2400% margin in their pocket. And, of course, nature will suffer significant long-term losses.
Bill No. 9516 is an initiative of People’s Deputy Alexander Matusevich (“Servant of the People”), which is very necessary for the activities of the state enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”. And here it could not have happened without the Deputy Head of the Office of the President Rostislav Shurma, as “Commander in Chief” has already written about.
Ukraine, unlike Europe, does not have another system for controlling sanitary logging than environmental impact assessment, and now they are trying to destroy this only mechanism.
How to turn industrial wood into firewood
Environmental impact assessment is usually considered in the context of ecology. But in a situation with sanitary logging, its role as an anti-corruption mechanism is no less than an environmental one.
The author of the bill, Alexander Matusevich, before being elected as a people’s deputy, worked as the director of the State Enterprise “Vygoda Forestry” in the Carpathian region. And it is foresters who are among those who are interested in ensuring that felling is controlled as little as possible.
Matusevich competently justifies the need to cancel the assessment of the environmental impact of logging. They say that while ecologists are preparing their conclusions, “wood that can be used is lost.” “In six months it will be firewood. Local budgets may receive less money. Industrial wood costs 25 times more than firewood. The losses are obvious,” explains the “servant of the people.”
It is this difference of 25 times in price between high-quality wood and firewood, voiced by Matusevich, that creates huge corruption risks. Leaves are hidden in the forest, and commercial wood is hidden in firewood after sanitary felling.
The absence of an environmental impact assessment will allow on paper to turn a healthy forest into a diseased one, which means that the state will receive money as for firewood, and someone will sell the wood for 25 times more expensive. The corruption scheme, the space for which will be opened by “Matusevich’s bill” if the Rada votes for it, gives an instant profitability of 2400%.
The easiest way to build such a scheme for the theft of state forests on an industrial scale is clear sanitary felling, for which legislators are asked to vote.
It is not difficult to cover your tracks in the forest: after cutting down there are only stumps, from which it is impossible to determine whether the tree was really sick. And, obviously, there will always be people in forestry enterprises who want to make money on such schemes.
The corruption scheme, the space for which will be opened by “Matusevich’s bill” if the Rada votes on it, gives an instant profitability of 2400%
Deputy Chairman of the Office of the President Rostislav Shurma last year voiced theses for “reforming” the industry, including increasing timber harvesting, mechanizing harvesting and producing more wood products. The planned harvesting figures of 25 million cubic meters of wood per year voiced by Shurma are already included in the Ukraine Facility plan for 2024-2027, which was published by the Ministry of Economy.
Oleg Bondarenko, chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Environmental Policy, who supported the bill and will propose it for consideration in the session hall, assures that norms that raised doubts among people’s deputies and the public have been removed from the text.
“We left only norms that should answer the question of what to do with huge tracts of forests damaged by fires and windfalls. Therefore, by the second reading, these discussion norms can be constructively and transparently finalized in order to avoid corruption risks,” Bondarenko assures.
Environmentalists believe that any adjustments will not eliminate the risks hidden in the bill.
The head of the expert department of the NGO “Ukrainian Environmental Group” Petr Testov calls the arguments of foresters who say that the environmental impact assessment procedure interferes with pest control as manipulative.
“On the website of Forests of Ukraine there is a logging plan for this year. In the Carpathians, for example, in the Vygoda branch, there are sanitary fellings in both August and September. If the forest there is really sick and needs to be cut down, then waiting until the fall is pointless even from the point of view of classical forestry. The answer is simple: in the Carpathians, clear sanitary felling has long been nothing more than a way to harvest wood where planned felling is prohibited by law.”
“Legalized” ecocide
The organization “Ecology-Right-Human” also opposes the “Matusevich project”. Geobotanist and forest scientist Sergei Panchenko notes that environmentalists have repeatedly recorded how valuable forests are destroyed during sanitary clear-cutting.
“In the Sumy region, in the Shalyginsky reserve, old-growth light oak forests are represented. Their peculiarity is that on poor soils oaks are spreading, hollow and, according to their age, have dry branches. Such forests are a haven for rare plants, animals, and mushrooms. At least make historical films! Light oak forests have been almost completely destroyed, but could be a model for foresters themselves. But the oak grove in the Shalyginsky reserve was cut down precisely through clear sanitary felling, and in its place they created pine plantations, and we will no longer see a forest that is natural in its species composition,” the ecologist is indignant.
According to Panchenko, a mandatory procedure for assessing the impact of logging on the environment is the way to preserve such forests.
Uncontrolled destruction of forests, if legalized, threatens long-term troubles for the world around us. Thus, deforestation can negatively affect the forest’s ability to retain water, notes Mikhail Khorev, a teacher at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy.
“Mountain forests play primarily a water-protecting, soil-protecting and climate-regulating role, and also perform health-improving functions. Clear-cutting has a significant impact on removing the forest's ability to hold water. The environmental impact assessment procedure is precisely the mechanism that allows us to assess the consequences of logging. There are even special methodological recommendations for studying logging in watersheds, just as part of the environmental impact assessment procedure. Therefore, accepting this project and canceling the environmental impact assessment for most clearcuts in the Carpathians is pointless,” the scientist sums up.
The country currently has a law “On Environmental Impact Assessment”, which provides for such an assessment for clear sanitary felling on an area of more than one hectare. In most European countries, such an assessment for sanitary felling is either not provided at all, or only for work on much larger areas - more than 5 or 10 hectares.
Environmental impact assessment is a fairly complex procedure, and in most cases it involves hammering nails under a microscope. Therefore, the question seems quite reasonable: why not abandon this procedure in Ukraine if the EU does without it?
The answer is simple: in the West there is an effective control system that has been developed over decades, thanks to which serious research is needed only in isolated cases. In Ukraine, there is no other control system other than environmental impact assessment.
Do environmental requirements really hinder logging?
Until 2017, sanitary felling, according to the legislation in force at that time, was not even classified as work posing an increased environmental hazard, and therefore was not subject to environmental impact assessment. And this stimulated corruption, the catastrophic scale of fictitious sanitary felling of healthy forests and led to the “balding” of the Carpathians and a number of other associated negative consequences for the environment.
To rectify the situation, the state has chosen the path of significantly increasing environmental requirements and mandatory environmental impact assessments for large-scale logging.
One can argue how expedient and justified the solution to the problem chosen seven years ago was, but the fact remains unchanged: over the years, no other mechanism has been created that could replace the current requirements for conducting an environmental impact assessment, while ensuring no worse results. environmental and anti-corruption protection.
Indeed, the assessment lasts more than one day, and the delay in the start of sanitary felling, of course, causes certain losses, because the condition of the wood deteriorates during this time. But if you remove this environmental norm, the transparency of the entire process will disappear, and the losses from corruption schemes alone in cutting down a healthy forest under the guise of a sick one will significantly exceed any possible benefits.
It is appropriate to recall that in July 2023, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law that allows, as stated by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, to reduce the time frame for conducting an environmental assessment from 216 to 67 days. This actually triples the possible negative consequences from the deterioration of the forest’s condition before the start of logging, which lobbyists use to justify the need to adopt the “Matusevich bill.”
Environmental control over logging will be minimized if the Rada passes “Matusevich’s bill”
The head of the specialized environmental prosecutor's office, Boris Indichenko, testifies: during pre-trial investigations, individual cases of illegal logging under the guise of sanitary logging were revealed.
“The proposed draft law increase in the area of sanitary felling without conducting an environmental impact assessment to 10 hectares can only worsen the state of legality in this area,” the prosecutor is confident.
In addition, Indichenko notes, the project provides for changes to legislation that will deprive the Ministry of Natural Resources of the authority to approve standards for the use of forest resources and coordinate forest management materials. At the same time, any other body is not given such powers, which means that control over such logging will be weakened, the prosecutor believes.
Why is martial law not an argument?
Lobbyists for the bill argue its necessity, in particular, by the fact that the environmental assessment procedure does not make it possible to provide the front with timber in a timely manner. Conservationists easily refute this argument.
“Prozorro has tenders for military units to purchase wood for the front. Information about the volume and diameter of the required wood is available there, so we see that these needs can be easily met by planned felling in artificial pine forests in Polesie right now, without any changes to the legislation. Which is what foresters, in principle, do,” notes Petr Testov from the Ukrainian Environmental Group. And he adds that the competition for the supply of wood to the front line was won by a private company, and not by the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”.
Let’s take into account one more fact that eliminates the need for legislative innovations: according to official data, clear cuttings account for about 11% of wood production. That is, the almost complete abolition of environmental impact assessment proposed by the bill will, at best, yield a gain of a few percent of the total volume of forest production, which is insignificant, given the risks described above.
The tender for the supply of wood to the front line was won by a private company, and not by the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”.
If we look at the situation through the prism of the issue of wood for the army, then it is worth paying attention to the law adopted in 2022, according to which activities aimed solely at ensuring state defense, eliminating the consequences of emergency situations, and restoration work to eliminate the consequences of armed conflict are not subject to environmental impact assessment. Russian aggression against Ukraine during martial law. That is, it has already been established that it is possible to carry out any logging necessary for the defenders of the country, without spending time on conducting an environmental impact assessment.
People's Deputy Yulia Ovchinnikova from the Servant of the People faction, which is part of the environmental committee, notes that project 9516 contains significant risks not only for the Carpathians, but also for the European integration of Ukraine.
“Next year, a new EU deforestation regulation (EUDR) will come into force in the EU, which aims to prevent illegally or unsustainably harvested wood from entering the European market,” Ovchinnikova recalls. “The environmental impact assessment procedure is the safeguard which allows us to at least somehow control clear sanitary cuttings.”
This is another argument for parliamentarians. But will he be able to overcome the strong lobby of evil “forest spirits”...
