The Federal Law No.455-FZ “On Amendments Being Made to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation in Terms of Better Regulation of Forest Protection against Pests” came into force
On October 1, 2016 the Federal Law No.455-FZ “On Amendments Being Made to the Forest Code of the Russian Federation in Terms of Better Regulation of Forest Protection against Pests” adopted on December 30, 2015 came into force.
The new federal law is focused on strengthening of the responsibility of forest users and all citizens of the Russian Federation for the compliance with the rules of sanitary safety in forests, on the organization of such forest protection system that would allow to quickly identify problems and efficiently take measures that reduce the environmental and economic damage caused by the impact of all adverse factors on forests, on reducing the time of all forest protection works and, first of all, sanitary felling.
The entry into force of this law is a major step in improvement of legal regulation mechanisms for protection of the Russian forests against adverse effects – in the Forest Code a separate chapter devoted to forest protection against pests sprang up, the articles concerning the sanitary safety in forests and key forest protection activities are significantly expanded and updated. In addition, the terms of sanitary measures carrying out are reduced, and the responsibility for their performance is increased.
In the new federal law the special attention is paid to the prevention of forest destruction, preventive measures that were addressed in previous legislation in a lesser degree. These and other innovations of forest legislation required handling a great number of by-laws. By October 1, 10 new documents were prepared and the amendments were made to 5 others. They include the new Rules of Sanitary Safety in Forests, Procedure for Forest Pathology Surveys and others.
The main innovations of the Rules for Pest Destruction are the expansion of the range of means and methods of measures to destruct and suppress pests and the establishment of a mandatory requirement for the executive authorities of the Russian Federation constituents to control the treatment of plants. The Procedure for Forest Pathology Surveys that sets forth the mandatory form of forest pathology survey report is prepared and approved. According to the amendments to the Forest Code, the reports should be posted upon each forest pathology study on the websites of the Forestry Offices of the Russian Federation constituents. The report shall contain not only information on the survey performed but on the forest protection measures to be taken.
“Currently, we compose a register of websites of the Russia’s constituents Forestry Offices. In each branch of Roslesozashchita there are appointed responsible persons whose tasks include the monitoring of the published reports. All information we collect in respect of reports will be sent to the Departments of Forestry according to Federal Districts. The inconsistency of information on scheduled forest protection measures with the data of the state forest pathology monitoring might be the reason to check the results of forest pathology studies performed,” says the Director of the Russian Center for Forest Protection Yevgeny Trunov.
The amendments made to the Forest Code and introduced by the federal law No.455-FZ have caused a number of questions in the area of enforcement of legislative innovations. The main problems are related with the issues of regulation of forest protection against pests. For example, the lands of defense and security and the lands of specially protected natural reservations have a number of peculiarities not allowing fully applying the provisions of the new federal law.
In addition, the issue of major tenants’ participation in destruction of pest foci is not resolved too. Also, the Law does not specify the criteria by which the pest affected area is defined as a “pest focus”.
The need for publication of the Report of forest pathology survey will require the strengthening of responsibility of all forest relation parties and their advanced training.
The control over forest pathology survey reports is a topic that caused the greatest number of questions. The federal control over reliability of data on the sanitary and forest pathology state of forests and validity of measures envisaged by the forest pathology study reports will require the creation of additional jobs, the development of an automated information system and the administrative rules on the publication and control of the forest pathology study reports. In addition, there is a personal responsibility of forest pathologist under the current Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for the provision of false or erroneous data of forest pathology examination.
“Innovations in forest legislation set forth by the Federal Law No.455-FZ are very important for the forestry as a whole. The timely adoption of measures to fight against pests and diseases of forest is one of the most important, and the situation with the bark beetle in the Moscow Region is a perfect example. Equally important is the control over the reasonable sanitary felling – we know quite a lot of abuses when the sanitary felling was performed on the healthy parts of the forest that have a stock of valuable, high-quality wood. The innovations of the federal law No.455 will allow us to better address such issues, even though the law itself contains, in practical approbation, the items on which we still have to work,” commented the Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation –the Head of the Federal Forestry Agency Ivan Valentik.