The President of Russia signed the federal law on digital transformation of the forestry complex
The federal law aimed at improving the legal regulation of forestry relations, increasing the efficiency and transparency of the forestry industry, was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The adopted changes will form the basis of a fundamentally new approach to forestry.
In particular, the document provides for the creation of a federal state information system of the forestry complex (FSIS LK) with ensuring full traceability of wood from its harvesting, storage sites to the production of processed products and export of products from the Russian Federation.
Transportation of wood and products from it is allowed only if there is an electronic accompanying document, which contains information about the owner, consignor, consignee, carrier of wood, its volume, species, assortment, points of departure and destination, about the vehicle license plate, as well as details of transactions with wood if they were committed. When transporting wood harvested by citizens for their own needs, purchasing wood in the retail market or in a retail trade in the amount of up to 10 cubic meters, an electronic accompanying document is not required.
The storage of wood after its removal from the cutting area will be possible only at the warehouses registered in the FSIS LK, and processing ‒ only at the objects of timber processing infrastructure, information about which is entered into the system. It is mandatory to comply with the requirement to register transactions with wood and its processed products with the FSIS LC.
The law also provides for a list of information that must be entered into the GLR: documents on forests, on their use, protection, protection, reproduction, timber and transactions with it, as well as documents on management in the field of forest relations, ensuring timber accounting and traceability, accounting for information about transactions with it.
Technical solutions for digitizing all documents in forestry are also provided for in the law. The volume of digital transformation in the industry today amounts to 3.5 million declarations of timber transactions and more than 9.8 million title and reporting documents: 206 thousand lease agreements, 4.1 million forest plantation sale and purchase agreements, 4.8 million reports on forest use, 657 thousand forest declarations and 40 thousand government contracts.
The law also obliges to create a single electronic card on the Internet, which will reflect the information of the GLR. The map will be free of charge and available for review to all interested parties.
In addition, the document contains provisions that provide for an experiment in 2021 in a number of regions to transfer the powers of state forest supervision to the federal level, the participation of lessees of forest plots in extinguishing forest fires and the refusal to transfer forest plots to sublease.
The federal law came into force on February 4, 2021, except for certain provisions for which the law establishes different terms.
Press Service of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation