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Forest Management in Russia
Russia's forest resources are owned exclusively by the Russian Federation.
The Forestry Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources administers 94% of Russia's forests. Regional Forestry Committees form an important part of regional government in areas within the Federation, such as the Republic of Karelia.
The Republic of Karelia's 9.6 million hectares of forest are divided into 25 local level forest management units, or Leskhozes. These units are in practice responsible for management and control functions. Their tasks include forest management planning and the allocation and pricing of forest resources for users in the private sector, as well as silviculture and forest regeneration.
Leskhozes are funded through budget appropriations. They also receive a proportion of the stumpage price payments made for the use of forest resources by private organisations.
Organisations in the private sector can obtain the right to use publicly held forest resources either by purchasing a harvesting licence (lesorubochnyi bilet) for a single forest stand, or by leasing a larger forest area for up to 49 years. Farmers can obtain the legal right to use an area of forest for their household needs for their own lifetime, but this does not entail the full ownership of forests.
The Russian Federation annually sets a minimum stumpage price for the use of forest resources. Republics may, however, set regional stumpage prices higher than the federal minimum. In practice, the actual stumpage price is often driven higher than the minimum price set by the authorities, through competitive bidding.
Sustainable Use of Forest Resources
In 1960s and 1970s, certain forests in European Russia were intensively exploited. But during this period forests further east were technically and economically inaccessible, as many of them still are. This means that only 20-30% of the total annual growth of forests across Russia is actually harvested.
This is a very low figure in comparison with many European countries, where the annual use of forest resources typically amounts to 60-80% of annual growth.
Karelia's forests grow by approximately 12 million cubic metres a year. Due to conservation programmes and other restrictions, the allowed annual harvest volume is kept at a level of around 10 million cubic metres, including 8 million cubic metres of regeneration fellings and 2 million cubic metres of silvicultural and intermediate fellings.
These permissible harvesting volumes are not fully implemented in practice. The annual harvest in the Republic of Karelia currently remains at a level of some 5-7 million cubic metres, largely due to the current low domestic demand for wood.
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