Forest legislation: several key changes that came into force on January 1, 2022
The Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Tatarstan presents an overview of the key changes in forestry legislation that entered into force on January 1, 2022.
Some of the amendments concern “compensatory” reforestation. So, following paragraph 4 of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 05/07/2019 No. 566 “On approval of the Rules for the performance of work on reforestation or afforestation by persons using forests following Articles 43-46 of the Forest Code of the Russian Federation, and persons who have applied with a petition or application on changing the purpose of the forest area”, now work on “compensatory” reforestation or afforestation should be carried out only with the use of seedlings and seedlings with a closed root system. We also remind you that following the Federal Law of 02.07.2021 No. 303-FZ “On Amendments to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”, from September 1, 2021, the deadlines for fulfilling obligations for compensatory reforestation or afforestation were increased from one year up to three years, introduced the need for agrotechnical maintenance of the created forest cultures within three years after their planting.
In addition, on January 1, 2022, the Federal Law of 02.07.2021 No. 304-FZ “On Amendments to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation and Articles 14 and 16 of the Federal Law “On General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation” forest management. Following this document, the authority for forest management on the lands of the forest fund was transferred to the federal level - subordinate institutions of the Federal Agency for Forestry. At the same time, the rights to form and establish the boundaries of forest districts located on the lands of settlements are assigned to local self-government bodies.
Along with this, Federal Law No. 304-FZ of 02.07.2021 introduced a legal institution for the allocation and taxation of felling areas preceding logging and felling of forest stands and qualification requirements for persons performing work and providing services for forest management, allocation, and taxation of felling areas. Now only those specialists who are included in a special register have the right to perform them. In addition, the law stipulates that timber harvested by state (municipal) institutions, including when carrying out forest conservation measures, must be sold at organized auctions.
At the same time, the changes also affected the transportation of timber. According to the Federal Law of 04.02.2021 No. 3-FZ “On Amendments to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in terms of improving the legal regulation of forest relations”, transportation, including based on a transportation contract, of timber and products of its processing, any type of transport is now allowed only after the formation of an electronic accompanying document in the state forest register or with the help of specialized software, which must indicate information about the owner, consignor, consignee, carrier of wood, its volume, species (species) and assortment composition, points departure and destination, details of timber transactions (if transactions with timber were made), as well as the number of the state registration plate of the vehicle on which the timber is transported (in the case of its transportation by road m).