"The Chinese cut everything down." Who is really destroying the Russian forest. Russian timber is being exported to China: analysis by numbers China is exporting Russian timber

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Russia leased 1 million hectares of forest to China for logging - this shocking news came in February and for some reason did not cause the slightest resonance. The PRC representative said that the Chinese economy is in dire need of forest resources, and therefore considers Russia, with its huge timber reserves, as its main strategic partner. Rosleskhoz said that the pilot project provides for “the organization, under the terms of the forestry legislation of the Russian Federation, of an enterprise with the participation of Chinese capital, which will carry out forestry, logging and processing, including pulp production, on the territory of the forest fund.” One of the regions of Siberia will become the experimental site. To identify the most profitable area, Rosleskhoz expressed its readiness to provide the Chinese side with “any information about timber reserves in Russia and methods for its development.”

The animal world is being exterminated in the most barbaric way. In the reports of the FSB border department for the Far Eastern Region, it was reported as fairly ordinary facts that during the detention of some Chinese couriers, the paws of 210 killed bears were found, in others - 250 kg of lips of killed moose, in others - 2500 sable skins, etc.

Serious damage has been caused to the forests of the Irkutsk region in recent years. Having purchased a permit supposedly for sanitary felling, loggers (as a rule, local residents hired by the Chinese) then act at their own discretion, cutting down first-class lumber and taking only the lower, most valuable part of the trunk, and throwing the rest at the felling site. Having paid $40 per cubic meter of roundwood, Chinese firms then sell lumber at international timber exchanges for $500 per cubic meter. Contributing to this robbery, the Chinese government even passed a law prohibiting the purchase of processed timber from Russia.”

Now this robbery, unprecedented in any other country except perhaps the most backward colonies, will receive an additional legal basis.

Simultaneously with the news of the conclusion of the above deal, a message came about the arrest of smugglers who were trying to smuggle 500 paws of brown and Himalayan bears into China. It’s amazing that there are still bears in Siberia! That they are not yet listed, along with the Amur tiger, in the Red Book. How long? The Chinese are known to not take care of the flora and fauna even on their own territory. What can we say about someone else's!

Not to mention the problem of expansion, the great concern is that with such a policy we will soon get desert instead of taiga.

But the Russian authorities are not at all concerned about this prospect. Momentary gain will cover everything. For her sake, forests are sold to China for felling. Rivers are being destroyed for her sake. For her sake, our country is turning into a global dump for radioactive waste, of which over 550 million tons have currently accumulated. Representatives of international environmental organizations have repeatedly drawn attention to the unacceptable storage conditions for radioactive waste in Russia. Not long ago, one of the German TV channels showed a report about a chemical plant in the city of Seversk, on the territory of which barrels of uranium waste brought from Germany are rusting in the open air. Rosatom plans to create systems of radioactive waste storage facilities and launch a radioactive waste management system in 2010. The corporation also plans to launch a spent nuclear fuel management system and a program for decommissioning nuclear facilities in 2015. The question is, why weren’t these systems established before bringing hazardous waste into the country? Why, in general, do Western countries prefer to send this “valuable cargo” to us rather than process it? But all this doesn’t matter to the gentlemen from the government! The main thing was to get a profit for permission to import radioactive waste, and what to do with them later - again, “maybe” it will come out.

For the same benefit, Prime Minister Putin, who showed off so much as a defender of Lake Baikal during the pre-election period, has now again allowed the great lake-sea to be polluted. “This news plunged the defenders of Lake Baikal into bewilderment and confusion,” lamented the writer V.G. Rasputin in conversation with V.S. Kozhemyako (“Time of Tragedies”). - What is this, starting all over again? I was a member of the State Commission on Baikal in the mid-80s of the last century, headed by Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov. In 1985, the commission decided to stop operating the pulp mill on Lake Baikal by 1993. But the new government in the early 90s was more likely to end the existence of Russia; at that time there could be no talk of Baikal. But today?!”

The decision to resume the work of the pulp and paper mill caused mass protest. Several thousand people of different political beliefs and professions came out to a rally on February 13, 2010 in Irkutsk and other cities. The appeal to President Medvedev adopted by the Irkutsk rally points to the need to conduct an anti-corruption examination of the adopted government resolution that allowed the pollution of Lake Baikal. Currently, the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill belongs to the structures of Oleg Deripaska, who, according to some information, would like to get rid of the asset. However, without permission to discharge wastewater into Lake Baikal, the enterprise was unprofitable; the oligarch needed to raise the price of the facility. And the Russian government immediately met him halfway, giving him the necessary permission.

It must be said that it is not only Lake Baikal that is under threat today. The barbaric policy towards nature in the Siberian region has been rooted since Soviet times and has been the subject of constant concern for many Russian writers. V.G. addresses this topic again and again. Rasputin. “After all, I am from the Angara, and my Atalanka, which moved half a century ago before the flooding of the Bratsk Reservoir up the mountain and took in half a dozen neighboring villages, is still alive, although it is apparently living its last years. The fields were flooded, the forests were cut down, there are no permanent roads to the big world, there is no work, there is no hope left - Atalanka is emptying, - the writer said with lasting pain in the above-mentioned conversation. - ...The beautiful Angara can only be called Angara out of old memory. Three hydroelectric power stations - Irkutsk, Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk - turned her into a swollen, robbed and even dangerous old woman. For tens of years after the flooding, it had to wash away unharvested forests from its depths and float them on the waves, and then clog its shores with barricades. The islands have sunk to the bottom, you can’t drink the water, you can’t eat the fish - these are the results of the work of chemical enterprises in Angarsk, Usolye-Sibirsky and Sayansk. You can’t, but they take fish and drink water. So what to do? Who should I complain to?"

Today, experts are of great concern about plans for the speedy commissioning of the Boguchanskaya hydroelectric power station, which has been under construction for about three decades. In the thirst for profit, it was decided to raise the level of the man-made sea from 185 meters planned in Soviet times to 208 or even 211. This despite the fact that back in 2003, with minimal pressure, the dam of the Boguchanskaya hydroelectric power station leaked and the foundation pit was flooded, sank into the water hydroelectric power station building. Fortunately, no casualties were avoided. However, according to experts, the implementation of the ambitious plan could turn into a disaster similar to the Sayano-Shushenskaya disaster. This summer at a meeting with V.V. Putin V.G. Rasputin raised this issue, asking, if it is not possible to stop the construction of Boguchanskaya altogether, to at least refuse to increase the elevation of the upper pool. According to the writer, “Putin’s answer was: it’s too late. As for the next hydroelectric station on the Angara (it exists in future plans), he said, there is no final decision on it yet. And literally a week after this meeting, Sayano-Shushenskaya collapsed. Of course, it was an accident that the tragedy occurred shortly after our meeting. But some very edifying accident.”

Sayano-Shushenskaya crashed. And it took dozens of lives. But the end to this story has not yet been set. According to a number of scientists, the current state of the facility could lead to a new catastrophe. A group of specialists issued an open appeal, in which they point out: “After the summer accident, new, critical problems for the dam appeared, caused by the inability to regularly pass water through the hydraulic units:

Heavy icing of the spillway and overpass;

Unprecedentedly long and extensive work of the spillway and water well, in time and volume exceeding the emergency for 12 years;

Possible erosion of the dam base;

Possible erosion of the foundation to the extent that allows the dam to “slide” down, collapse, or allow a new flow of water to appear under a huge dam

In the event of a breakthrough of the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam, not only will our fellow citizens, our loved ones, our mothers, children, our husbands and wives die, but cities and industrial facilities, including nuclear ones, will also be destroyed, and the economic and defense potential of the country will be undermined. A new catastrophe could lead to a worsening economic crisis, trigger irreversible social and geopolitical processes, mass unrest, chaos, revolution and the disintegration of the country into parts. Russia as a single whole may cease to exist, repeating the fate of the Soviet Union. Our common task is to prevent a breakthrough at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric station. Great indignation is caused by the position of JSC RusHydro and the authorities, who hide from their people, from the people living below the hydroelectric power station, the actual condition of the dam and do not allow independent experts to visit the hydroelectric power station. Let us remember the landmark accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, five years after which the USSR ceased to exist. A lot of people died, including from radiation sickness and cancer, only because they were not promptly and correctly informed by the authorities. Ignorance killed them. And he continues to kill."

But that’s not what high-ranking heads, busy with the pursuit of profit, are worrying about. Crazy ideas propagated by the capital's mayor about transferring Siberian rivers to help Central Asia are discussed again and again. Once in the USSR, a similar project was stopped through the efforts of the public. But there are serious doubts that in modern Russia there will be voices that can outweigh the autocratic madness. Once upon a time, the project for the development of the historical center of St. Petersburg was stopped, thanks to public protest led by Academician Likhachev. And today Gazprom’s “icicle” is being built, and no one cares about the protests. And lackeys from the “intelligentsia”, without hesitation, strive to show loyal feelings by supporting this barbarism. Probably, if our authorities decide to divert the rivers, they will also immediately find enthusiastic supporters from among the “most honest”, “most talented”, “most intelligent”... lackeys.

And the protests of scientists... Who cares about them? We don’t even give them a word. Quite recently in the State Duma, at parliamentary hearings on the legislative framework for ensuring safety at industrial facilities, the first deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Industry "United Russia" Valery Draganov simply did not allow Doctor of Technical Sciences V.V. to speak. Kudryavy, a leading expert in the field of energy and a consistent opponent of the energy reform “according to Chubais,” and academician S.S. Grigoryan, member of 15 foreign academies, author of 300 world-famous scientific works. “Turn off the microphone!” - Mr. Draganov shouted during the academician’s speech. And when he continued his report with the microphone turned off, he began to demand that Grigoryan “go away.” “I won’t leave! – the scientist answered this. “Say what you want, I’m a professional, and you’re a nobody.”

According to the editors of the DZVON website, “literally a few days ago, the authorities, on the initiative of A. Chubais, disrupted the holding of a scientific and practical conference on the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, depriving the participants of the event of the designated meeting room at the last moment. But it was at this conference that the country’s most prominent power engineers were expected to speak to discuss the extremely dangerous situation developing at the hydroelectric power station. The former leaders of our energy sector, who, to the shame of United Russia, had just been expelled from the parliamentary rostrum by United Russia Draganov, were also scheduled to speak there. Such facts can be assessed as political adventurism. Judging by what has been happening in recent days, including at the hearings in the State Duma, the tasks of Messrs. Draganov and Chubais, as well as their political patrons, do not include the prevention of disasters, but, on the contrary, their successful preparation. Like Mr. Brzezinski, they are going to build their future “at the expense of Russia and on the ruins of Russia.”

It should be added that in the same way the conference “Tragedy at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Power Station: Crime Without Punishment”, scheduled for February 11 at the Russian State Library, was disrupted and will not take place. At the last moment, the administration of the RSL refused to provide premises for the meeting, citing “instructions from above.”

The other day, Chairman of the State Duma Gryzlov expressed his attitude towards scientists, calling members of the Academy of Sciences obscurantists who interfere with the innovative development of Russia and do not have the right to judge what is science and what is pseudoscience. Boris Vyacheslavovich was offended by the distrust they expressed in relation to his friend Viktor Petrik, together with whom the speaker invented a certain “Method for purifying radioactive waste.” Petrik, sentenced in 1984 to 11 years in prison with confiscation of property under 13 articles of the Criminal Code for fraud, attempted robbery, extortion and other violations of the law, enjoys the full support of “guiding and guiding.” Today, he is the General Director of Infpro CJSC, the Foundation for Presidential Programs, the Director of the Department of Strategic Research of the National Security Academy of Russia, the head of the New Processes enterprise, which produces USVR - a carbon mixture of high reactivity, and the scientific director of the Scientific Research Institute of Supramolecular Chemicals organized in Dubna. systems and nanotechnologies, owner and scientific director of Golden Formula Holding LLC. According to the Chairman of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of research on plasma physics and the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. G.I. Budker RAS (Novosibirsk), laureate of the USSR State Prize Eduard Kruglyakov, Petrik also served as an adviser on economic issues in the mayor's office of St. Petersburg. Recently, the United Russia “Kulibin” has been actively involved as an expert in consultations with the Russian government, the State Duma, and the United Russia party and participated in the development of the program for innovative development of Russia until 2020. Rumor has it that Mr. Petrik has already invented a miraculous elixir that prolongs life. It must be assumed that, through joint efforts, Petrik and Gryzlov will soon invent a perpetual motion machine, which will be called by analogy with the “Shoigu” filter produced by Petrik’s enterprise, “Putin”.

Thus, the modernization of science is just around the corner, and it will take place under the slogan “Down with the obscurantists who do not let us into a bright, innovative future!” It seems that we had something similar in times not so distant. In this regard, I remember the figure of Academician T.D. Lysenko, who in the 30s came out with the statement that absolutely any plants can be bred artificially, which, in the opinion of the party leadership, was fully consistent with the basic tenets of Marxism. In his theories and scientific works, he used, among other things, references to decisions of the Party Central Committee as evidence. The concept of Lysenko, who received the full support of I.V. Stalin, whom he constantly praised, was recognized as the only correct one, and any criticism of her was perceived as sabotage. Lysenko's monopoly in biology, combined with Stalin's methods of combating dissent, caused the destruction of entire scientific schools and the death of many scientists (in particular N.I. Vavilov). Under the leadership of Lysenko, Soviet genetics was completely destroyed. Later it was unequivocally proven that all of Lysenko’s ideas are nothing more than quackery, based on pseudoscientific research and falsification of experimental results.

Under the leadership of “scientists” who will not interfere with the innovative development of Russia, there is no doubt that snow will be banned and rivers will be diverted. So, just what will be left of science then? From Siberia? From Russia in general? One continuous “zone” in which not even a stalker can be found. "Save Baikal!" - cried those gathered at the rally in Irkutsk. And I should have added: Save science! Save Siberia! Save Russia!

All of Siberia has been leased to the Chinese, the scale of deforestation is such that in 10 years there will be a bare desert here - such statements are increasingly found on the Internet. Some people blindly believe them, others simply brush them off, claiming that it’s all fake. The “Time-Forward” project decided to put an end to the long dispute and figure out how it really happens.
As always, based only on numbers and facts.
How much does China export?

The first figure that will help us understand the situation is the volume of Russian timber exports to China. China, indeed, is the largest buyer of our timber due to the fact that we have a convenient land border and high-quality timber. According to official data, we sell approximately 22 million cubic meters of forest products per year to our neighbor.

The export of timber bypassing customs is practically impossible and, if it exists, it is in scanty quantities. However, there remains the possibility of fraud at the customs itself with an underestimation of the volume of exports. The approximate scale can be calculated based on the needs of China. They amount to approximately 170 million cubic meters per year, about 100 of which are closed by China itself, and at least another 30 million cubic meters are supplied to China from other countries. It turns out that if we proceed from the bold assumption that only in Russia suppliers underestimate export volumes, then in total we sell 40 million cubic meters per year to our neighbor. Now let's figure out how much this is.

How much forest is there in Russia

Russia contains about one-fifth of the world's timber reserves. The total area is over 750 million hectares, which is more than Canada, Sweden, Norway, the USA and Finland. However, not all timber is suitable for industrial harvesting. In total, we have 30 billion cubic meters in reserve for these purposes, which is three times higher than the reserves of Canada and the United States.

Therefore, if we assume that China will buy Russian timber at the same pace as now, then even taking into account the black exports we have calculated, it will take approximately 800 years to export all industrial resources. But this will never happen for several reasons.

Firstly, China is increasing its own timber production and in 10-15 years intends to significantly reduce import volumes. Secondly, the forest is a renewable resource and, with the right approach, almost endless. Thirdly, we are not the only ones working with China, and Canada, New Zealand, Finland, the USA and other countries are fiercely competing for the right to sell their timber to China.

However, all of the above does not mean that we can now relax. We really have a lot of problems in the forestry industry.

Are the Chinese to blame?

The idea that all of Siberia and Primorye are overrun by Chinese lumberjacks who steal and secretly export our timber is not true. China simply does not need to take such risks, because the forests are illegally cut down for them by Russian citizens themselves. And the Chinese just buy it and send it home. Yes, often by participating in illegal transactions, but they are impossible without the participation of the Russian side. And the main problem here is not so much the scale of the shadow business, but its barbaric nature. Forests are being cut down indiscriminately with gross violations; there is not even talk of any compensatory restoration of the forest.

But the worst thing is that unauthorized dumps are formed at the felling sites, which often lead to fires. Namely, fires today destroy much more forest than its illegal extraction. Last year alone, 4.5 million hectares of forest were damaged due to fires in Russia. If it were only industrial timber, it would take 22 years to export it to China.

Now let's talk about what the state is doing to preserve our forest resources.

How to protect the forest

It would be unfair to say that the state turns a blind eye to the situation. The first step was to reduce the export of unprocessed roundwood and stimulate the export of lumber. Therefore, back in 2008, protective customs duties were introduced on the export of round timber, which led to a sharp reduction in the export of forest raw materials and the development of our own processing. The results are clearly visible in these graphs:

At the same time, it was prohibited to cut down rare and especially valuable forest species under pain of criminal punishment. The EGAIS system began to be used in relation to forests. As a result, each tree is tracked throughout its commercial life - from the place where it was cut down to the border crossing. As a result, the volume of detected violations and the number of criminal cases increased 6 times.

Now the state has gone further and decided to stimulate deep wood processing using complex biochemical technologies. For this purpose, industry clusters and public-private partnership projects are being created; we talked about many of them in our issues.

And, literally, the other day a bill was finally adopted, which provides for the mandatory restoration of forests after deforestation. They are obliged to plant seedlings within one year after the work in a volume equal to the felled area. And of the same breed. Or contribute an equivalent amount to a fund that is engaged in reforestation independently.

The problem of illegal logging in Russia and smuggling to China exists and it is stupid to deny it. Its scale is not as great as popular rumor portrays;

The Chinese do not steal Russian timber, but buy it from our businessmen, who themselves easily break laws in the pursuit of profit;

Selling timber abroad is normal. The world's largest economies are fighting for the right to supply China;

Forest is a renewable resource. It can and should be sold, but at the same time it must be cut down according to the rules and managed effectively, in which we are still inferior to many forest countries;

Only the state is able to restore order in the forestry sector through tariff measures and strict control;

Any strengthening of control over the industry in the future will be accompanied by protests from those who are accustomed to making their living from illegal businesses, which means that we will still see protests on this topic and attempts to give it a political character.

Scientists believe that during the last ice ages in Russia there was no gloomy taiga, but an endless tundra-steppe where mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and musk oxen grazed. Then people came, ate the mammoths - and everything was overgrown with forest, because there was no one to trample the trees and fertilize the grass.

The country's tundra-steppe can be restored using national character and international economic cooperation.

Fires and logging annually destroy an average of 3-4 million hectares of forest. The clutter of those areas that form after logging contributes to an increase in the number of forest fires, which, in turn, leads to additional logging - under the pretext of eliminating the consequences. The circle closes.

Demand for wood is strong in Europe and growing in China, where logging in natural forests is now prohibited. And Russia provides China’s needs—a quarter of domestic timber goes to the Middle Kingdom. The volume is growing every year.

At the same time, the local authorities are not reporting about this at all, or rather, not quite about this at all - they are talking about the influx of Chinese investments in “harvesting and deep processing of wood.”

As a result, the entire Siberian taiga accessible to transport gapes with bald patches of clearings and black burnt areas.

In the southern regions, the forest retreats to the north, and if we consistently continue what we started, our grandchildren will see the reunification of the tundra and steppe. Unless they see mammoths.

True, resistance to logging and timber export is growing in the regions. On the Internet you can find a dozen petitions signed by thousands of people, both against the destruction of specific forests and the export of wood to China in general.

“Now, “by law”, almost all environmental restrictions on logging have been lifted... and over the past 10 years we have lost half of what has been accumulating for a millennium... Take an initiative to completely transition the logging industry in the Primorsky Territory to plantation cultivation over the next 5 years” - for example, a specialist in the ecology of cedar-broad-leaved forests, and with her 32 thousand signatories.

People don't just write. On May 11, a meeting was held in the Zakamensky district of Buryatia, which denied a lease to the “priority forest development project” of the MTK-JK company and its Chinese owner. Zakamenets immediately established a people's council for forest control. Three days later, the police tried for an hour and a half to disperse demonstrators who were demanding “guarantees of a refusal from Chinese logging” on the threshold of the Khural (local parliament) in Ulan-Ude.

The head of Buryatia, Tsydenov, made a contradictory statement, combining respect for the will of the “misled” Zakamensk residents with a promise to give the forest to the tenant in the neighboring Eravninsky district and, in general, to restore order in the forests and the heads of the troublemakers. One problem is that the Buryat authorities have three more “priority projects” with federal lobbyists and foreign investors breathing down their necks, as well as half the population of forest areas, living only from logging – legal and illegal.

The neighbors are doing even worse. Oleg Korsun, an ecologist and local historian from the Transbaikal University, reports that in the Khiloksky district - one of the most forested areas of the region - they cannot allocate a measly 20 cubic meters of forest to citizens for individual construction. The area of ​​forests suitable for felling is being reduced so much that there is not enough for our own, the scientist states. A meme was born in the region - “To Manchuria for timber”, because in this Chinese borderland the processing capacity of timber imported from Siberia is concentrated.

The head of the Greenpeace forestry program, Alexey Yaroshenko, in the article “The Great Chinese Devastation of the Forests of Siberia” convincingly argues that, basically, it is not “the Chinese who are massively cutting down the forests of Siberia,” but Russian citizens - in order to saturate the Chinese market. But such volumes of exports of unprocessed and poorly processed wood are the result not of local arbitrariness, but of decisions of federal authorities, partly caused by the myth of Russia’s inexhaustible forest wealth.

The main feature of both Chinese and non-Chinese logging is that coniferous forests are used as a practically non-renewable natural resource. Almost no one is engaged in the cultivation of such forests, that is, forestry itself in the classical sense, in the taiga zone. Natural restoration takes more than a century, and fires and climate change make it fundamentally problematic.

Taiga forests are used simply as a natural deposit of logs - and any deposit is sooner or later exhausted.

This problem cannot be solved solely by restrictions on exports or on the work of Chinese enterprises - since the Russian market consumes wood in the same wasteful manner, and Russian loggers treat forests no more carefully than Chinese ones. Therefore, simultaneous actions are needed both to bring Russian forestry legislation into some decent condition and to stop specific projects that most threaten the Siberian and Far Eastern forests.

As an example of a project that needs to be stopped, ecologist Yaroshenko talks about the Amazar timber processing complex (aka ", aka "" company) under construction, which involves the annual production of 400,000 tons of cellulose and 700,000 cubic meters of lumber.

According to a Greenpeace expert, the project is absurd - it will take a long time, and it is impossible to effectively grow forests on frozen soils. In 2016, the initiators of the project also finally admitted that they could not rent forest areas sufficient to supply even the first stage of the plant and promised to purchase what was missing from unknown “third-party suppliers.” Most likely, the main point of the project is not to develop the timber processing complex itself, but to justify the construction of a border bridge across the Amur to make it more convenient to export timber.

Back in 2003, a promise to build a pulp mill was made by the authorities of Heilongjiang Province to prevent the closure of businessman Nagel, an ally of the then governor, who was driving round timber to China. But in 2007, the crossing was closed due to violations, and the Amazar forestry complex project began using loans from the China Development Bank. Over the next 11 years, the plant was not completed, but, having spent 28 billion rubles, they made a mess: they tried to take over the lease of the territory, blocked the Amazar, a large tributary of the Amur, with a dam, falsified the results of public hearings, etc.

Finally, in 2018, the project was left without investment, having finally failed in its placement on , where international environmental organizations filed a complaint. There seems to be every reason to stop and reconsider the unviable project, but this is politically difficult.

This is the third governor of Transbaikalia reporting to Moscow on “the creation of the largest Chinese forestry project in Russia.” Several governors of Heilongjiang Province were promoted for “building the China-Mongolia-Russia Belt and Road Initiative economic corridor in the far north of China.” After all, there is nothing more to report on mutual cooperation to either Russian or Chinese local authorities other than stories about the export of raw materials.

And the more hopeless this project became, the more attention and benefits it received from the state. Now this is a “priority investment project” of the Ministry of Industry and Trade with a multiple reduction in forest payments, as well as a “priority investment project” of the region with tax benefits. In December 2017, the Chinese comrades generally asked for funding for this long-term construction in the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund, half of which is filled by Russian taxpayers. Plus, the administration of the Trans-Baikal Territory came to the rescue and included the construction of the Pokrovka-Logukhe bridge in the “Concept for the development of border territories of the Far Eastern Federal District and the Baikal Region,” as well as in the recommendations of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation on the development of the region.

The Chinese are also not far behind. The Pokrovka-Loguhe crossing is included in the long-term plans of the Belt and Road Initiative of Heilongjiang Province, which provides a hypothetical opportunity to milk national infrastructure funds. To make up for the failure of the project and fit into the PRC “Silk Road” Program, the Chinese partners renamed the unnecessary long-term construction into “Amazar Park of Trade and Timber Cooperation “Polyarnaya”“. Now it is assumed that in addition to the never-launched pulp and sawmills, 10 more types of enterprises will appear, for which there is not even justification for investment. To organize this industrial park, an “Investment managed company in the zone of trade and economic cooperation in the forestry industry “XINBAN GUOJI” was established.

What is happening indicates that the pulp mill here is, rather, a screen, and the real task is to gain a foothold in Amazar under any pretext, simulating the creation of any kind of production.

But there was a misfire: for reasons unexplained to the public, the XINBAN GUOJI Management Company has been in the process of liquidation since December 2017. It’s comical, but it is precisely the creation of the Amazar industrial park that appears in the “List of measures for the socio-economic development of the Trans-Baikal Territory for 2018-2025,” signed by Medvedev on May 3. The document promises 14 billion for the development of Transbaikalia, but wisely does not allocate a penny of money for the Amazar industrial park and related infrastructure.

So, the Amazar scam is moving towards an inevitable collapse, and we must ensure that it does not come by destroying the last forests of Transbaikalia. But while the Amazar project is dying in agony, the Ministry of Industry and Trade cites it as an example of success, advertising to Chinese investors the possibility of investing in new capacities. And over the past year alone, several agreements have already been signed on the creation and expansion of pulp production from Arkhangelsk to Khabarovsk.

The mechanism for destroying the forests of Siberia is clear: the Chinese have a strict attitude to protect their own forests and a great need for wood. Since childhood, they have heard about the “resource-rich country in the north.” Russia is not able to provide the Chinese with current data on reserves of raw materials - forest management was carried out 5-15 years ago - even before the big fires. The Chinese are ready to take their word for it, since the agreement concluded with the Russian Federation will help them get loans at home. So the Russian side is playing with fire, trying to turn Chinese environmental restrictions and geopolitical aspirations into its competitive advantage. The government has already reduced environmental and social requirements for forestry projects to a level that cannot be lowered. Already, for example, nature reserves are being cut down (Novaya, for example, has already talked about nature reserves being cut down in the Irkutsk region).

So Russia only WAS the largest forest power.

Semyon Laskin- especially for Novaya

The forests of Siberia and the Far East are being ruthlessly cut down for export to China.

2017 has been declared the Year of Ecology in Russia. It just seems not our country, but China. This feeling is created by looking at how the taiga in Siberia and the Far East is being cut down to please the Celestial Empire, which is restoring its forests. The Irkutsk region holds the anti-record. Last year it was illegally cut down and exported to China. more than a million cubic meters Russian wood.

What is the main natural wealth of our country? Many will answer: of course, oil and gas. After all, it is on their export that Russia’s main budget revenues are built. However, there is another answer: this is a forest, " green gold" countries. Firstly, in terms of oil reserves, our country is only eighth in the world, and in terms of forest area - the first on the entire planet. Russia has about 25% of all the world's forest reserves, 3 times more than the USA and Canada combined, over 50% of the world's reserves of valuable coniferous species. Secondly, and this is the main thing, oil, gas and other minerals are extracted and not restored, that is, sooner or later they will run out. And the forest, if treated with care and diligence, will live forever, bringing enormous benefits to all people - both economic and environmental. This especially applies to the Siberian and Far Eastern taiga, which is rightly called one of the main “lungs of the planet” and our national treasure.

More than half of all illegally obtained timber is cut down in the Irkutsk region

Alas, this national treasure is now not only not being taken care of. His barbarically destroy. The area of ​​forests is shrinking at an alarming rate; millions of hectares of green space have already been lost. And, according to the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Sergei Donskoy, the damage from forest cutting in Russia is growing every year. Over the past five years, the volume of illegal logging has increased by 70%!

Almost all of this Russian wealth, which has become an export item, goes in the form of timber to China. In the Amur region, according to official data from the environmental prosecutor’s office, more than half(!) State Forest Fund. And these are just legal volumes. The scale of the shadow business is at least no less. In Primorye alone, up to 1.5 million cubic meters of wood are illegally cut down annually, which brings shadow structures at least $150 million in profit. This amount is almost half of the region's annual budget.

According to reports from the Siberian Customs Administration, in 2016 alone, loggers supplied almost 7 million cubic meters of wood to foreign consumers. Three quarters of this volume falls on the Baikal taiga, where more than 10% of the forest reserves of all Russia are concentrated. As a result, ecology Baikal- one of the most beautiful pearls of Russia - is now under threat of destruction. The territory of the Irkutsk region is unique, since the share of valuable coniferous species here is very high, even on a planetary scale. In addition, the forest protects the soil from drying out. However, back in Soviet times, the Irkutsk region was the leader in timber harvesting volumes. In the post-Soviet period, it achieved even greater success in this field, cutting down forests many times more than any other subject of the Russian Federation. According to official data from the Ministry of Natural Resources, More than half of all illegally extracted Russian timber is harvested in the Irkutsk region. It accounts for 62% of timber exports of the entire Siberian Federal District. The entire southern half of the Irkutsk region is now almost a continuous cutting area. The areas covered by legal and especially illegal logging are unprecedented. The territory of the Irkutsk region is currently almost 50% clear-cut, Even space images show vast wastelands.

The largest forest dump in the world

Forest cemeteries are multiplying throughout the Irkutsk region - and not only in the form of dead stumps of former living lush trees. Every city in the south and center of the Baikal region has huge dumps of discarded trunks and branches. The largest such forest dump in the world with a volume of 2 million cubic meters is located under the city Ust-Kut. After all, as a rule, only round timber is exported, that is, the lower, most valuable part of the trunk, and the rest of the trunk and crown are left to rot in place - like the corpse of a former living tree. This is what both “black” lumberjacks and legal tenants do.. And it’s more convenient to transport round timber. Russia has already become the leader on the planet in the export of round, unprocessed timber - 16% of the world market - a leadership of little honor.

Local residents are killing their own environment, because for many this is the only way to earn money. The local authorities are happy with this because they don’t have to worry about creating legal jobs. And there are no protesters among the residents, because many are unwillingly involved in the criminal forestry business. Corrupt officials are doing everything they can to ensure that these massacres continue. Hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of valuable species are illegally cut down under the pretext of sanitary logging. Almost no one seems to really check whether the logger has chosen his quota or has already exceeded it many times over. Moreover, the government also helps in every possible way to cut down the taiga for commercial purposes. A considerable part of the territory of Siberia and the Far East has already been leased to entrepreneurs from China or under joint Russian-Chinese management. Tenants from China, which has become the main importer of Russian timber (64% of all its exports), are given tax preferences. For export specifically to the Celestial Empire, preferential duties apply.

China has banned deforestation on its territory

The Ministry of Justice approved the rules according to which the Ministry of Natural Resources increased the area of ​​forests where timber can be harvested by 1.5 times. Now industrial logging is allowed in valuable cedar forests. Head of the Greenpeace Russia program for protected areas Mikhail Kreindlin is indignant: “This will result in the destruction of forests in many regions of Siberia and the Far East, from the Tomsk region to Primorye. Many animals will lose their homes.” The most valuable species are being destroyed - Angara pine, Mongolian oak, Korean pine, Manchurian ash, and this is a blow to the entire ecosystem of the region. The water level in many rivers is already abnormally low, and lakes are drying up. In the thinning forests of the Far East, according to the World Wildlife Fund, only 450 individuals of the Amur tiger, listed in the Red Book, remain.

But cedar wood is in significant demand, including among processors in China, where own cedar harvesting has almost completely stopped. It is not surprising that exports from Russia are growing. However, rather it is similar to the removal of raw materials from an occupied colony. The Chinese government even passed a law banning the import of processed timber from Russia, - everything is in the interests of domestic, that is, Chinese, manufacturers. One cubic meter of Russian round timber is sold to China for about $40, and lumber made from it there for the USA and Europe costs on international timber exchanges already at 500 “bucks” per cubic meter. Not a bad gain, right? When 2017 was officially declared the Year of Ecology, the Minister Donskoy assured: “I’m sure positive changes will be noticeable to everyone.” And he didn’t deceive. Positive changes are very noticeable... in China. If in the south of Siberia and the Far East there are already deserts made only of stumps, because the forest is cut down around the clock, and there are practically no processing industries, then in Huge processing complexes stand in a 50-kilometer zone on the Chinese side, littered with Russian wood.

BY THE WAY

The authorities of the Celestial Empire, where forests had previously been mercilessly destroyed, 10 years ago strictly banned their felling - under strict criminal penalties. With the goal of turning China into an ecological civilization, authorities are working to restore forests that will cover about a quarter of the country by 2020. This government program is already bearing fruit. To date, about 13 million hectares of forest areas have been created. Where there were only stumps, the green oak groves rustled again. Let us be glad that this is also the merit of Russian forests, sacrificed for the revival of Chinese ecology...

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Sergey Savchuk, for RIA Novosti

Just a week or two ago, the Russian-speaking World Wide Web was simply bursting under the pressure of the righteous anger of fighters for everything good against everything bad. The latter mercilessly nailed and denounced “this regime” and “this country”, which completely, completely sold the forest of Siberia to the Chinese. Any network expert quickly proved that there were practically no forests beyond the Urals, everything had been sold, and the Chinese had taken everything away. The postulate was also very actively promoted that in China itself, logging is prohibited: they say, look, they take care of their forests, but ours is taken out in caravans. Let's try to understand this sensational topic.

As usual, let's start with history.

Historically, Russia is quite rich in forests. Trade in this “green gold” has been going on for a very long time; the first documentary mentions date back to the time of Tsar Ivan IV, better known as the Terrible. Neither the Russian autocrats nor the builders of the world's first communist power disdained to sell timber.

There are traditionally a lot of forests in Russia. At the beginning of the 1980s, the total forest reserves for the RSFSR amounted to 72.49 billion cubic meters, including:
. Northwestern region: 7.6 billion;
. Ural region: 2.9 billion;
. West Siberian region: 8.7 billion;
. East Siberian region: 27.43 billion;
. Far Eastern region: 21.4 billion.

Three decades later, in 2015, closer to us, the State Duma Committee on Agrarian Issues reported the following figures:
. total timber reserves in Russia: 81.5 billion cubic meters;
. annual growth: 993.8 million cubic meters;
. suitable for felling: more than 42 billion cubic meters.

As we see, even if the figures announced in the State Duma are divided by standard bureaucratic optimism, we still have an increase in forest reserves in general. In order not to be accused of bias, let’s say that in the same 2015, the relevant UN committee estimated the volume of Russian forest reserves at 83 billion cubic meters.

Now let's figure out how much forest is being cut down and how close we are to the promised catastrophe.

At the turn of 1988-1989, the USSR annually cut down about two and a half million hectares of forest, harvesting about 400 million cubic meters of wood. In 1989, the Soviet Union exported:
. 20.5 million cubic meters of commercial timber (6.7% of total production);
. 8.2 million cubic meters of lumber (8%);
. 0.4 million cubic meters of plywood (18.1%).

In total, the Union supplied products from this sector to 67 (!) countries. The main buyers were Japan, China, countries of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. At that time, the USSR ranked fifth in the world in terms of timber exports, behind the USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland. The weakest point of this state business was that round timber and lumber were supplied abroad, while in the top four, up to 60% were occupied by pulp and paper industry products.

Note in the margins. It should be noted here that in 1990 the Exportles company reported that more than 70% of the forest growing in the taiga zone is “overmature”, that is, old trees unsuitable for industrial use. A similar phenomenon occurs in situations where forest cutting is carried out in insufficient quantities without taking into account the specifics and age of forest plantations.

What figures do we have for the corresponding indicators?

Modern Russia, like its Soviet predecessor, places the main emphasis in logging on coniferous trees. According to the results of 2017, conifers are 2.6 times larger than hardwoods in terms of harvesting volume. In general, this sector showed a decline in production in 2017. Only the harvesting of deciduous wood grew slightly. Let us note, however, that such a slight increase has been observed for five years in a row.

Exports also decreased. For example, in 2017, 1.1% less coniferous timber went abroad than a year earlier. The export of fuel wood also fell steadily: in 2015 - by 7%, in 2016 - by 4%, in total, 14.7 million cubic meters of low-grade fuel wood were exported from Russia in 2017.

Russia cuts, harvests and exports significantly less timber than the Soviet Union. In parallel with this, our production of related materials is growing. For example, the production of furniture plywood in Russia has the following dynamics:
. 2012: 3.13 million cubic meters (exports 1.63);
. 2013: 3.27 million (exports 1.77);
. 2014: 3.49 million (exports 1.99);
. 2015: 3.56 million (exports 2.2);
. 2016: 3.65 million (exports 2.55).

The total export volume of lumber has increased; in 2012 this figure was 4.8 million tons; in 2017 it was already 12 million. Pellet production volumes are also growing. Over the past year, about 1.4 million tons of such fuel briquettes were produced in Russia.

As for the export of timber specifically to China, in 2016 the PRC imported 22 million cubic meters of timber from Russia, which amounted to 19% for the Russian market. Unscrupulous citizens brought up this figure by spreading horror stories that Russia has become the main supplier of timber to China. It is not true. China is the largest buyer of Russian timber, yes, but most of the timber in the PRC is supplied (suddenly) by the United States. The volumes of supplies to China in terms of monetary equivalent are as follows:
. USA: $7.6 billion;
. Russia: $4.5 billion;
. Canada: $4 billion.

It turns out that countries are fighting to the death with Russia for sales volumes to China, which among citizens of ambiguous patriotic orientation are usually used as examples of ideal subsoil and land use. And this despite the fact that Russia, according to a UN FAO report, has a forest area of ​​809 million hectares, Canada - 310 million, the USA - 304 million. It’s a paradox, but with almost three times the volume, we cut on a par with the developed countries of the West.

In China itself, deforestation is also not prohibited. Last year alone, the People's Republic of China independently produced just under 100 million cubic meters.

In Russia, specifically to combat illegal logging and sale of timber, the EGAIS system was introduced - the Unified State Automated Information System for recording timber and transactions with it. With its help, literally every cut tree is tracked all the way from the logging site to the border or processing plant. The results were not long in coming. Over the past two years alone, the number of detected offenses and initiated criminal cases related to illegal timber trafficking has increased sixfold.

…For today’s report to be objective, it is necessary to mention real, and not fictitious, problems of forestry in Russia.

The main one is that our forestry industry is consistently unprofitable. In global practice, a universal indicator of forest management efficiency is used - the volume of wood removed per hectare. And, alas, according to it the country is far from world leaders, inferior to Germany (4.9), Finland (2.3) and even the notorious China (1.4). For us, this figure is a sad 0.2.

One cannot help but remember that the timber industry complex (LPC) occupies a negligible place in the structure of state industry, being “squeezed out” to the margins of government attention and interests by the problems of oil, gas, gold and other minerals extraction. The industry is experiencing permanent underfunding, which leads to its extremely low profitability. The volume of payments to the country's budget per hectare of forest is just over 20 rubles.

To summarize briefly.

The situation with deforestation is returning to normal year after year. Maybe not as fast as we would like, but still. Is there illegal logging in Transbaikalia and Siberia? For sure. But it is not the Chinese who are involved in it, but our compatriots, who are carrying out the illegal and predatory destruction of the forest. That is, all the money received from this criminal business ends up in black cash with regional poachers.

The main problem of preserving and increasing the forest fund is not deforestation, but annual fires, which in most cases arise due to human negligence and boorish attitude towards nature. According to official statistics from the UN and the World Wildlife Fund, about two million hectares of forest burn in Russia every year. Up to 600 million hectares are outside fire protection zones. Last year alone, 4.5 million hectares of forest were damaged by fire in Russia.

If we translate this into annual supplies to China, this is equal to 22 years of continuous exports.