Interview of V.V.Gavrilov, deputy Director for Property and Land Relations, Economics of Natural Resource Use by the newspaper Vremya Novostey, 08.11.2005, "If you take forest to mean land overgrown with trees..." 

2005-11-08

Source: newspaper Vremya Novostey

"IF YOU TAKE FOREST TO MEAN LAND OVERGROWN WITH TREES..."

Taken by Vera Sitnina

Vremya Novostey, or News Time, 08.11.2005, p. 4

Deputy director of MEDT department V. Gavrilov tries to explain the experts' negative attitude towards the draft Forestry Code

The Forestry Code, scheduled for its second and third readings by the State Duma for the autumn session, has seen a lot of fur flying over it. It is the Forestry Code that is expected to answer the question, how do you preserve your forest and feather your nest with what you can get from it? Vera SITNINA, observer with Vremya Novostei, was told in an interview by Vsevolod GAVRILOV, deputy director of the Economic Development Ministry Department for Property and Land Relations, Economics of Natural Resource Use, about who will be in charge of allocating forest reserves, whether it will be possible to buy a title to a piece of forest, and why the draft code has so many enemies.

One of the issues at the heart of the Forestry Code: which one will own the forests: the state or the federation member in whose territory they are?

In the eye of the law, all forests are federally owned. But we believe that the regions must also have sufficiently strong powers. Specifically, it is proposed to leave the issues of forest reserve management, such as what to leave for own use, what to farm out, to the discretion of the constituent territories of the Federation. This provision is incorporated into the draft code version passed in a first reading, but the wording is rather vague.

The plans are to be implemented by a joint decision of the federal and regional authorities.

Isn't it the two-key principle that is being so strongly campaigned against by the resource management lobby?

I wouldn't say that. This is in actual fact a consolidation of the powers granted to the federation member by another law-giver, for example the Urban Development Code, as regards zoning, planning of territory. This is in all likelihood the worst possible solution, to introduce a two-key principle when all is to be done jointly. We propose to divorce this aspect. First there'll be development planning. Here the region can influence the federation's plans using the powers granted by the land legislation and the Urban Development Code - this is stage one. Stage two is when the constituent territories are in charge of administration, hold a tender and make contracts, perform the functions of a contracting party, but within the part assigned to them under a previously made plan.

How does the Code treat the question of private ownership of forest? It is this question that accounts to a large extent for such a loud public outcry against the new forestry legislation.

Well, if you take forest to mean land overgrown with trees, than we already have non-federal (private, municipal) forests. For example, on farmlands, settled lands. If we were to talk about the land of the forest reserves, we propose to keep them in federal ownership. And it's out of the question for such reserves to be made available for private ownership today. And at the same time we shouldn't forget that the Constitution allows private property. We believe that it is premature to make this a standard practice and that the management of the forest reserves should be governed by a dedicated federal law. That is why all the forest reserve holdings currently remain in federal ownership.

And how long will be long-term lease? After all, a long term of lease is, essentially, very much like private ownership.

The legislation currently in place provides for forest blocks to be leased out for a term of up to 99 years. There has been no definitive solution as yet. We are now discussing whether to keep that limit or reduce it down to the one that was in force several years ago - 49 years. Why it is necessary to keep long lease options in place is clear to all forest users. It is only when you have the right to use your forest holdings a long time that you will take care to have them reproduce.

Are there any apprehensions that such long-term leaseholders won't let in "their" woods mushroom hunters and vacationers?

The bulk of the woods accessible to the public have already been leased out today. So far there have been no signals on a massive scale that there are problems and people can't get into the grounds leased out. Although the current legislation is not very clear on public access. We propose to beef up the provision that guarantees free access of citizens to the forests. We have redrafted this article quite extensively to spell out what you can and cannot doe. I would like, however, to point out that passions are running somewhat high over this issue. You get the feeling that somebody is intentionally takes things out of the context in an attempt to demonstrate a threat or something. What makes passions run high is clear enough: history lessons, distrust of the authorities. Distrust, which, if truth be told, is not without ground. People fear that innovations will only make their situation worse.

And have you managed to iron out the differences within the government?

In point of fact, there is a philosophical consensus among the federal agencies as regards the Forestry Code. The discussion is focused on ways to achieve the objectives set. Here disputes quite often break out, which is absolutely normal.

Two examples. The forest reserves have not yet been described in compliance with the requirements of the land legislation. Such a description is necessary as it will produce an object that can be commercialized and clarify what it is that we actually have within the lands of our forest reserves. The question is, will it be necessary, if such a description is enacted, to re-register the rights to use the forest reserve holdings under a compulsory procedure? Probably, not. That said, we understand that it is impossible to leap in one stride from a situation of total non-transparency to total transparency. We need a transition period.

Second example. We believe that it is necessary to switch from felling licences to forest declarations. A licensing system is a very dangerous and corruption-prone environment. Where does most of our ugliness come from? On the face of it, the law doesn't allow any of it. However, the same law quite often features small print that says that you can do it subject to a special permit. The new draft of the Forestry Code provides for forest exploitation and forest management to be governed by public direct-application regulations to leave no room for "special" decisions to be made. That raised a lot of hackles. Well, I never! We are already used to there always being a special permit to give you the green light. Moreover, the flak came from all quarters. The administrators say this is impossible because each case is unique. The forest users say such regulations are a nightmare to comply with.

Are they?

Certain forestry science academics tried to persuade us, and keep on trying, that it is impossible to give up an individual approach to assigning standards for forest management and use at a given location. We looked at how our closest neighbours, the Finns and Balts, are going about it. They put together all the guidelines in one great box, turned them into three or four direct-application regulations and published, including posting on the Web. And now everybody knows what they can and cannot do. They had a rather hard transition period, a year or two. But then the people got used to the idea that in actual fact all forest management and use regulations can be public. Then both the forest user and the auditor will be guided by the same documents. When we embarked on the reform of the Tax Code, nobody believed that the boxes full of Finance Ministry instructions can be made to fit into a law. This is done. That is why we believe that there must be a very short period, about three years, to enable us to switch from a licensing system to a system of declaring compliance with requirements. For the forest, the factor of there being a man in charge and public direct-application regulations for forest management and use is a key ingredient of the formula for its salvation as a part of the ecosystem.

What other novel pivotal provisions are there in the Forestry Code?

These would include the need to safeguard the forests against fires, pests and diseases on lands of other categories, to clarify the rules for using the lands of forest reserves for exploration and production of minerals, a number of statutes to regulate supply of the rural with forestry products.

If the Forestry Code has so many useful innovations, why is it that its version passed by the Duma in a first reading has been getting so much flak?

Most flak had to do with many critics "discovering" a procedure for selling forest reserve lands down the river into private ownership, as well as an absence of a list of well-defined powers for the regions. A solution to the second problem has been offered by us for the second reading, but "privatisation" of forests left us scratching our heads. Because the bill as it stood in the first reading had no mention of the privatization at all. The text featured a provision lifted from Russia's Constitution, with the ownership issues left for federal laws to settle, federal ownership of forest reserve lands enshrined. The critics have probably either failed to read the text carefully enough or blindly believed those who told them about "privatization". Hence the outcry. And here we are partly to blame too. We must make a better job of explaining what it is that we are doing. It is possible that as time goes by people will become deeper versed in legal matters. The authorities must always and without restrictions explain their intentions and actions, be transparent.

How do you think the Forestry Code will fare in its second State Duma reading?

Hopefully, better than in the first. We had time for discussions, and we have come up with answers to a great many questions. We shall do our best to have the code passed in the autumn session. But this not the most important thing. What is most important is that we need to enact a document that will perform well. We'd hate to put in place documents that are full of holes. We want to forge a code that would last if not for centuries, though trees do live for centuries, but at least for a historically long period.