Vladimir Putin endorsed the initiative of the All-Russia People’s Front to preserve the urban forests

On November 22, 2016, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the “Forum of Actions” of the All-Russia People’s Front, endorsed the initiative of the public monitoring group of the All-Russia People’s Front on the problems of ecology and protection of forest aimed at preserving the urban forests.

The All-Russia People’s Front activists touched on the problem of urban forests mass reduction and proposed measures for their protection – to adopt legislative rule that will allow including all areas of urban forests into the generated “green shield”, to complement the Forest Code with the enhanced concept of urban forest. The representatives of the All-Russia People’s Front also raised the problem of insufficient environmental inspectors and unjustified sanitary felling.

In response to the questions of the representative of the All-Russia People’s Front Vladimir Putin emphasized that it is required to include the urban forests into the State real Estate Cadastre.

“The fact that these urban forests are still not included into the state cadastre. That is what makes it possible to dispose them as one wishes and anyone at all. As a rule, these forests are close to infrastructure facilities, it is easiest to construct there. It is necessary to make these forests included into the state cadastre. This will be formalized in the appropriate documents and instructions to the Government. Also, it is necessary to include urban forests into the category of urban parks – then it will allow protecting them more effectively and directly, as they say, immediately,” said the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In order to further enhance the security status of urban forests of the Russian Federation the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology has developed and agreed upon with the federal authorities and submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation a draft federal law “On Amendments being Made to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation in Terms of Improving the Regulation of Use, Conservation, Protection, Reproduction of Forests and Forest Designated Sites".

The draft law, in particular, dedicates a separate article for regulation of urban forests and prohibits clear cutting of forest plantations and placement of capital construction facilities in urban forests.

An additional mechanism for the protection of urban and suburban forests is to establish the forest and parkland green belts provided for in the Federal Law No.353-FZ “On Amendments being Made to the Federal Law “On Environmental Protection” and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation regarding the Establishment of the Forest and Parkland Green Belts” dated July 3, 2016 adopted at the initiative of the All-Russia People's Front.