The Head of the Ministry of the Natural Resources tested information portal on accounting of prepared wood and deals therewith created by the Federal Forestry Agency

The Minister for Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, Sergey Donskoy, tested the information portal on accounting of prepared wood and deals therewith, created by the experts of the Federal Forestry Agency. According to him, the algorithm of work of the information portal is simple and clear.

The Federal Law “On making amendments into the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation” and the Russian Federation Code on administrative violations come into force as of February 1, 2014. The law was prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Environment and Ecology and the Federal Forestry Agency.

Three fundamentally new chapters are introduced into the Forestry Code and they regulate the matters regarding accounting, labeling, transportation and declaration, creation of the unified information system for accounting of prepared wood and deals therewith.

The information portal was elaborated by the Federal Forestry Agency and it is the first step to create the unified state information system on accounting of wood and deals therewith (USAIS). At the moment, the portal contains the information on timber procurers, agreements on lease of forest plots, the rights on permanent (unlimited) use and forest declarations.

Development and implementation of the whole information system USAIS is designed for 2 years. The portal gives access to the data bases containing the information of the Federal Forestry Agency on the use of forest resources only to the authorities concerned. First of all, it is the block of power ministries that should ensure de-criminalization of the forest sector. The Minister acknowledged with satisfaction that the algorithm of work of the information portal is simple and clear.

As for right now, the task of the Federal Forestry Agency and power authorities of constituent entities of the Russian Federation is to provide the system with high quality and reliable data on the use of forest resources.

“During the first stage, the portal gives access to the information databases on forests only to power authorities, but in the future it is necessary to determine the volume of the information on the use of forests that will also be accessible to the public”, acknowledged the Minister.

In his turn, the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Head of the Federal Forestry Agency, Vladimir Lebedev, said that the law on accounting of prepared wood and deals therewith is by definition revolutionary for the whole forest complex.

“He breaks the interdepartmental dissociation in the process of accounting of prepared wood making all the operations on the market of forest materials transparent. The law does the new economic groundwork in the forest complex and gives an opportunity to charge fees for the use of forest resources in the long-term perspective with regard to prepared wood and the quality of wood assortment”, he said reminding that today forest users pay based on conventional stumpage rates and periodic yield, which are far from the situation on the market, actual volumes of forest use and forestry-based requirements.

According to Lebedev, the law doesn’t only introduce advanced systems of wood accounting into the forest field, but also urges the regions to practice more serious attitude to reliability of data on the use of forest resources.

“Despite all its revolutionism, law implementation envisages several stages and it is rather extended in time, so we can prepare and escape unexpected surprises, which will be experienced only by those who will fail to make their business transparent”, he concluded.