The private forests may appear in Russia

An important conversation topic at the meeting of the Public Council at the Federal Forestry Agency on December 20, 2016 was the issue of legal regulation of the use of forests on agricultural lands in the context of the intensification of forestry.

The problem of forests on agricultural lands is much more serious than it seems at first glance. As of today, the area of the Russian agricultural lands overgrown with the forest is, according to various estimates, from 30 to 70 million hectares. In 2010 the area of ​​abandoned croplands was more than 31.6 million hectares. Typically, these lands are relatively highly productive and quite readily available in relation to the transport.

Remaining unused for over a quarter of a century, the agricultural lands have been covered with trees and shrubs, in many cases, they formed a full-fledged forest.

“We have already passed the first point of no return, when it was still possible to return the lands to agriculture, when their new reclamation would make economic sense. Now, taking into account the overgrown plants it is already economically not profitable. Moreover, we come to the second point of no return, when it is necessary to generate mission-oriented highly productive plantations using the forestry activities,” expresses his scientific point of view, the Director of the Institute of Forestry of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Andrey Sirin.

It is particularly important that in compliance with current legislation, forest management and harvesting the merchantable wood on these parcels is illegal, the owners of agricultural lands are subject to administrative liability. As a result, these forests become targets of uncontrolled cutting and are in the zone wildfire risk.

Legally, these areas are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture. There is no farming on these territories, no compliance with fire safety and sanitation requirements; whereas the transfer of these lands to the state forest reserve or permit to farm on agricultural lands would create there the plantations with high yield, similar to the plantation forests in China and the United States.

According to the joint study of the Institute of Forestry of RAS and WWF, in the Uglich District of the Yaroslavl Region almost 30% of agricultural lands are covered with trees and shrubs and along with this more than 15% are dense, formed stands. In addition, another 10 to 20% of lands are in the early stages of overgrowth. The multi-year researches were conducted in the Uglich District, the Yaroslavl Region, typical for the center of the non-Black Earth Belt according to forest-site conditions, the state of agriculture and forestry.

The Institute of Forestry of RAS has developed a methodology to assess the situation with the agricultural lands overgrowing with the forest at the regional level, based on the analysis of map data and medium and high resolution satellite observations, including the creation of a network of ground points and holding the two-level classification of multispectral data of land remote sensing.

The possible ways to solve legal issues are to transfer the overgrown agricultural lands to the jurisdiction of the forest management authorities of the constituent of the Russian Federation, or to make amendments to the Land Code of the Russian Federation authorizing farming on agricultural lands. According to Andrey Sirin, it will create an important precedent for the appearance of private forests, which will require the development of rules and regulation of forestry in such forests.

Then it would result in the artificial high-yield forests, allowing not only the highly profitable intensive forestry, but also to compensate for the decrease of forest lands as a result of the implementation of infrastructure projects. However, the resolution of the issues with forests on agricultural lands is hindered by the viewpoint of the department responsible for these lands.

“Federal Forestry Agency receives complaints from people who are concerned about the efficiency of the land use. A quantity of parcels, including in regions with insufficient forest cover and challenging environmental conditions, are overgrown with forest, but are not provided with adequate care, including the fire prevention measures. Currently, the land users have no right to legally grow a forest, as a form of land use. Growing forests on such areas will have a positive impact on the overall ecological status of regions,” says the Head of the Forest Use and Reproduction Administration of the Federal Forestry Agency Mikhail Doronin.