Background Document
Costa Rica, 18 - 22 January, 1999

CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States)

Causes of forest degradation in the CIS can be traced back to changing values and aspirations, combined with a political transition that has given rise to social and regulatory confusion. There is a growing tendency for CIS populations to see economic success as the highest priority value. At the same time, the most developed countries, with law-abiding populations, are increasingly using other, less developed, countries as ecological colonies. The combination of these two trends can only be wide scale environmental degradation.

Gradually, people throughout the world are arriving at the understanding that it is impossible for everyone to live up to the 'American standard'. In principle, this is impossible to achieve. We still hope that, on the contrary, those in the developed countries will become aware of the necessity to admit the principle of 'reasonable sufficiency'.

The case studies undertaken by the CIS workshop have looked closely at those initiatives which will make it possible to preserve resources until a more favorable time, when people have reassessed the prioritization of values. The more resources that can be conserved until that time, with the fewest possible losses, the more likely it is that people will shift to a more conservationist state of mind. It must be cautioned, however, that there are no guarantees that such a favorable transition will eventually occur

The studies undertaken by the CIS group demonstrate that ecological problems do not have a beginning and an end. Rather, they touch upon all aspects of life. It is therefore not possible to consider every element affecting the environment; at the same time, one cannot confine oneself to a one-step analysis. It is necessary to track the whole causation chain, in order to find those parts of it which can be solved right now, without losing sight of the wider context in which these particular problems occur.

The original cause of deforestation in Russia was the need for more agricultural areas to provide the growing population with food. Population growth, industrial development, construction of roads, water reservoirs, etc. required areas free from tree vegetation for management purposes. This resulted in the concentration of deforestation in the densely populated region of central Europe.

As civilization developed, logging for timber began playing a greater role among the causes of deforestation. In Russia, it is characteristic mainly for the southern boundary of forest areas. However, deforestation also occurs in the pre-tundra forests, as the result of logging by reindeer-breeders, mineral extraction, etc.

In the past, timber was mainly used to produce heat, and deforested areas for the production of crops. These were essential activities. At the same time, however, requirements for food and heat have a natural satisfaction limit. As a result, it was senseless to produce food and heat in excess, and deforestation was therefore limited naturally.

Russian society today is unlikely to recognize ecological limitations to forest use for the sake of humanity as a whole and for future generations if these limitations stand in the way to the achievement of well-being. Thus, the most important cause of modern forest use patterns in Russia is poverty. This should be understood to mean insufficient material consumption, leading to diseases and a decreased life expectancy.

The other cause of forest degradation is not as obvious, although formally it can also be called 'poverty'. This kind of poverty is different from half-starving. It should be accurately be called 'relative poverty', since it is based on envy caused by observing wealthier people. The avarice of those Russians who are aiming eagerly at power and wealth can be considered one of the most important underlying cause of deforestation in Russia.

There are also ecological and socio-economic causes of reduction of forest areas. These are determined by the two groups of factors. The first group is concrete forest-vegetation conditions. The second is the economic situation of forest users (populations) in a concrete region, an individual village.

Forest protection in Russia is complicated by the shift of the entire society to 'short-term leadership', when a high ranking official can easily be fired after the next elections. In reaction to this political situation, leaders are oriented towards the achievement of quick results; yet this is especially hard to do in the field of forest management. As a result, long-term forest use strategy will constantly be sacrificed for the sake of current political interests under conditions of economic and political instability. The situation is made worse by the inefficient and/or corrupt use of funds intended for regeneration of forests.

Given the political and economic situation in Russia, education and an increase in the level of political, ecological and economic literacy among the population as a whole have a particularly important role to play.

Summaries of case studies

1. SIKHOTE-ALIN REGION CASE STUDY (EXAMPLE: KRASNOARMEISKII DISTRICT OF PRIMORSKII TERRITORY)

The basic type of District resource-oriented economics is represented by two key industries of Primorye - logging and mining. For a territory 90% covered by forests, the extent of these activities in the Soviet period - oriented primarily to resource trade - was enormously destructive.

Since then, there have been obvious successes in environmental activities - part of the territory had been given back to the Sikhote-Alinskii Preserve, Korean pine logging has legally been banned, the Tayozhnii Refuge has been able to keep its territory and been renewed legally, the Sredne-Ussurskii National Park has been justified; however, practically nothing has been done to protect and support the indigenous udege community. The only real hope to offer better future prospects to the udege may be found in plans to create a national park with a broad and complex ethnic program for tourism and sustainable resource use.

Forest degradation has also come about because of the fact that the Iman group of udege has for the past 10-15 years existed in constant conditions of destruction and assimilation as a compact ethnic community. Simultaneously, their ancient sustainable culture of forest use, based upon respect of the living forest as a foundation for traditional household and land management, has been disappearing. This process, intensified by destructive resource extraction (ore mining, gold mines, logging) has produced total ruin in the heart of the Ussuri taiga, on the former lands of the Sikhote-Alinskii Preserve.

A series of efforts by district authorities to support and restore the ethnic community in the Ostrovnoye (Sanchikheza) area was not able to give positive results owing to general economic problems and an absence of support from regional and federal authorities.

Logging has produced a highly complex network of causes of degradation. Fish disappeared from Iman river in the years of log floating, and forests and wildlife have been destroyed by off-rules logging, poaching and portages across the slopes. Animal migration routes have been obstructed by logging roads, and in the past 7-8 years have been filled with thousands of Japanese second-hand cars, driven by unemployed citizens in search of any sort of job and revenue.

In a time of failure of traditional logging enterprises (lespromkhoz), and while new loggers still have not and cannot become civilized firms due to government tax policies, which are destructive for native producers, the main danger to the forest comes from numerous small businesses which are given logging licence for any kind of logging, of any species, in any area.

It is remarkable that the failure of the Japanese economy and stagnation in the main consumer market for Siberian timber there has left small criminal businesses almost unharmed. Having recovered after the first economic shock, criminal groups have begun to scare and bribe heads of administrations, local forest services, militia and environmental protection officials. On the other hand, traditional basic loggers have once more been hurt, trying to trade timber legally.

The most important underlying causes of forest degradation are threefold:

Legislative and administrative shortcomings

• Defects of legislation and governmental strategy, particularly establishing increased allowable cut and limits, based on an old-fashioned methodology of forest evaluation and a lack of funding for forest research institutions;
• Basing bidding procedures for logging rights on the solvency of bidders, to the detriment of environmental reasonability;
• Absence of EIA procedures in the process of forest leasing (timber sales);
• Economic failure of former lespromkhozes, pushing people into small, illegal forms of forest use;
• Different regulations and sizes of water protection zones provided for under fisheries, forestry and water use legislation;
• Commercial secrecy for export operations and contract timber prices;
• Absence of an environmentally reasonable federal strategy for forest use, and the impossibility of realizing such an approach in the current process of economic development;
• Access of small private forest users to full logging rights, and the absence of any real of control their activities;
• Failure of the system of fire protection and fire fighting;
• Governmental opposition to regional efforts to ban ash export from Primorye, adopted by the regional administration and protested by the prosecutor.

Violations of forestry rules

• Permanent violation of logging technology in former times (mainly arrangement of portages across steep slopes, initiating fast erosion during strong monsoon rains, disturbance of young trees, lack of reforestation);
• Continuing rejection of traditional, sustainable forms of forest use, normal for indigenous peoples;
• Industrial logging under the label of salvage, intermediate activity, maintenance, etc.;
• Delivery of logging licenses for species depending on the priority of market demand, to the detriment of forest sustainability;
• Purchase of illegal licenses and other documents by bribes;
• Logging without any licenses - stealing of timber;
• Passing on of logging rights to other loggers.

Violations of customs and financial rules

• Fabricated lists of timber sorting and prices in comparison to real consignments;
• Artificial reduction of contract prices in comparison to those actually paid, and, as a result, inducement to increased amount of logging;
• Signing of fictitious contracts, providing no real payment to exporter's account and producting no revenues for the territory, although these are necessary for logging industry recreation and renovation and for reforestation and fire fighting;
• Export of more timber than is provided by contract.

It should be noted that the Asian timber market in particular makes a strong contribution to the process of deforestation.

To summarize, as soon as money become the first, if not the only, priority in resource use management of territory, the last features of the balanced development of the taiga, which was maintained by the former Communist management, disappeared. Despite all the problems with centralized financial supply of forest complexes in Soviet times, local officials together with logging leaders understood that plans for industrial development had to include reforestation, infrastructural and social development and fire protection. And those plans used to be implemented.

In the current political situation, forest degradation is worsened by low citizen consciousness of the problem, the absence of will on the part of companies to look for legal ways to survive, and the creation of the new non-timber forest products (NTFP) market. At the same time, the NGO contribution to solving deforestation problems has been lessened by local NGOs becoming too scientific, and consequently separated from real life.

Possible Solutions

The case study has led to a number of suggestions to combat deforestation in the region.

Short term and continuing activities:

• Organize public checkpoints on the roads, with militia supplied by the initiative of administrations and Goskomecologia;
• Insert ecological and forestry priorities into regulations governing bidding for forest plots;
• Mass media campaigning in favor of positive patterns of taiga community development, rather than destruction of the forest as a basis for local economics and indigenous survival;
• Creation of an inter-institutional task forces for forest protection, with the involvement of forest, hunting and environmental inspection authorities, militia and community;
• NTFP marketing.

Long term activities:

• Attract investments into small companies activities, dealing with NTFP harvesting, wholesale and processing: nuts, berries, needle, ferns, mushrooms, wines, herbs etc.;
• Encourage the creation of small timber processing factories, producing goods attractive to the local market: parquet, lathes, souvenirs, etc.;
• Develop ecological, sporting, and scientific tourism;
• Create an ethnic-cultural center and community model of forest use for the udege;
• Create legal proposals and regulations for local and regional parliaments with the goal of privileging small businesses concerned about sustainable resource use;
• Broad propaganda and support by the forest service, loggers and environmental protection staff to insert volunteer and obligatory certification of timber into forestry practice;
• Active work by environmental NGO 'Taiga' and others to move NGO candidates to local and regional legislatures;
• Legislate initiatives by environmental activists together with the Association of indigenous people and the regional Duma for legal adoption of privileges for indigenous people in their resource use rights (derogation from regional and local taxes, requests for federal Duma, priority in bidding independent of solvency, etc.).

Plans must be capable of being put into effect, since the udege are becoming tired of a series of plans, programs and promises of ethnic development, support and privileges which are i practice never implemented.

More important, although very complicated, will be the slow creation of a model of a collaborative national park administration based on the principles of udege community. This process is delicate, and may not have a juridical basis. Legislation has created a series of artificial and nonsensical social and legal abysses between representatives of community and town. Nonetheless, collaboration must be the starting point for any activities in the taiga intended to create a new model of society and maintain environmental wealth. Such collaboration must keep in mind the priorities of the indigenous peoples, which are protected by international Conventions but not sufficiently by Russian legislation.

2. GEORGIA REPUBLIC

Wood is the only raw material in Georgia's furniture and cellulose-paper production. All Georgian furniture manufacturers use only local raw materials. Forests also play a vital role in the fuel balance of the country. Its importance as fuel has especially increased in recent years, as the volume of Georgia's gas and oil provisions has sharply decreased.

The main reason for deforestation of the territory is of a historic character. Since the 1920s, the process of deforestation has been suspended; moreover, government forest management bodies have taken active measures to cultivate wood plants. The threat of the deforestation recommencing has sharply increased in recent years as a result. However, in the conditions of the current power crisis, the population has started cutting wood around populated areas as well as in parks and gardens.

After the breakdown of the Soviet Union and during the period of the power crisis (which primarily harmed the living conditions of refugees and the socially unprotected stratum of society), forest degradation increased. The measures taken by government bodies and non-governmental organs in order to prevent this process are obviously insufficient.

The processes of forest degradation are favored by continuous export of timber to foreign countries. One of the reasons for undesirable tendencies in forestry is weak ecological protection. For this reason, ecological education needs to be seriously improved. Other contributing factors to forest degradation include:

• The fact that the Georgian Parliament has not yet adopted the main forestry laws;
• Responsibility for forest devastation has not been mentioned in the Criminal Code yet;
• So far, there are no real costs on wood; this encourages speculation;
• Evidence of illegal catches can be observed in the reserves;
• Environmental agencies are very weak in regions which depend on implementation of existing law;
• Indifference to the problem.

Improvements to the situation could also be brought about by strengthening the control of wood export. Unfortunately, Georgian timber is exported from Georgia to foreign countries at very low prices. The firms which are engaged in producing timber and in its sale do not express even the slightest interest in the condition of Georgian forests. For this reason, forest exploitation has taken on a depredatory character. This can only be countered by organized activity to restore forests and supervise forest use.

List of Case Studies

The following subjects (1-2) and regions (3—7) were considered in the CIS case studies:

A. Subjects

• 1. Influence of insects on Siberian forests by Vladimir Soldatov.
• 2. Poverty and life styles by Prof Dmitry Vladyshevskii

.B Regions

• 3. Krasnoarmeiskii distrikt -Primorskii region: Ivan Kyalunziga and Anatoly Lebedev.
• 4. Bryanskii region by Oleg Markin and Ludmila Zhirina
• 5. Predivinskii forest industry enterprise -Krasnoyarskii region by Prof. Rosa Babintseva.
• 6. Georgia Republic by Alexander Urushadze.
• 7. Mari-El Republic and Central Volga River Region by Dr. Igor Jakolev

List of Participants

Baskanova Tatjana Fjodorovna, Friends of Siberian Forests, Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia.

Bakharev Andrei Valentinovich, Commiteee of Angara River Salvation, Nazarovo, Central Siberia..

Beckwitt Eric, Sierra Biodiversity Institute, California, USA

Blinov Lev Vladimirovich, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Western Siberia.

Babintseva Rosa Mikhailovna, The V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS), Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia..

Deviatkin Gennadii Vyacheslavovich, State Nature reserves "Small Abakan" and "Tzachy", Abakan, Khakasia Republic, Southern Siberia.

Kondrashova Tatyana Victorovna, The Altai Branch of the Socio-Ecological Union, Barnaul, Southern Siberia.

Kuzmichev Valerii Vasilyevich, The V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest SBRAS, Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia.

Kyalunziga Ivan Andreevich, The Primorsky United Organization "Kedr", Krasnoarmeiskii district, Primorsky terrotory, Russian Far East.

Laletin, Andrei Petrovich, Friends of Siberian Forests, Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia.

Laschinskii Nikolai Nikolaevich, The Central Siberian Botanical Garden SBRAS, Novosibirsk, Western Siberia.

Lebedev Anatolii Victorovich, The Bureau of Regional Public Campaigns – BROK, Vladivostok, Russian Far East.

Markin Oleg Victorovich, Bryansk Regional NGO "Viola", Bryansk, European Russia.

Nazarova Yulia Semyonovna, Administration of the President of the Tyva Republic, Kyzyl, Southern Siberia.

Moshkalo Vladimir Vladimirovich, CIS Branch of IUCN, Moscow, European Russia.

Oparin Roman Vladimirovich, Gorno-Altaiskii Botanical Garden, Gorno-Altaisk, Southern Siberia.

Ortiz Rosario, Foundation Ecotropico, Colombia.

Ponarina Yevgeniya Alesandrovna, Sovyetskaya Molodjozh Newspaper, Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia.

Sannikova Irina Valeryevna, Khakassky Regional Ecofoundation "Tchazy", Abakan, Khakasia Republic, Southern Siberia.

Soldatov Vladimir Vladimirovich, The State Forest Protection Enterprise, Krasnoyarsk Regional Forest Service, Central Siberia.

Urushadze Alesander Tengizovich, Ministry of Economy, Georgia Republic.

Vladyshevsky Dmitrii Vladimirovich, Krasnoyarsk Technical University, Central Siberia.

Yakovlev Igor Aleksandrovich, The Mariiskii State Technical University, Yoshkar-Ola, European Russia.

Zabelin Alexander Ivanovich, The Committee on Forest of the Krasnoyarsk Region, Krasnoyarsk, Central Siberia.

Zabortseva Olga Valentinovna, Salvation of Angara and Yenisey Rivers, Lesosibirsk, Central Siberia.

Zubov Nikolai Arkadyevich, Krasnoyarsk Branch of the Socio-Ecological Union (SEU), Central Siberia.

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