The war сauses the opening of loopholes for illegal logging — Forestcom analysis

During the war in Ukraine, the functioning of state electronic resources underwent significant changes. Many of them were temporarily blocked so as not to risk sensitive information. For obvious reasons, this affected many geographic information services and systems that worked based on this data. This not only helped to avoid information leaks and cyberattacks but also, unfortunately, made it difficult for the public to control the legality of many processes. In particular, verification of the legality of logging has become problematic due to the lack of access to electronic resources and the difficulty of accessing public information that is not a military secret.

Experts of the NGO «Forest Initiatives and Society» analyzed changes in the monitoring of the legality of timber harvesting in Ukraine under martial law. It turned out that access to electronic resources is not an exhaustive factor in complicating control over the legality of logging. There are also other reasons:

• There is no automatic (operational daily) public update of information on issued logging tickets.

• It remains impossible to verify the location, area and configuration of the fellings themselves due to the lack of access to forest electronic maps - https://map.ukrforest.com/

•  There is still the possibility of abuse as a result of purchases of unprocessed wood under the so-called «direct» contracts when the buyer is determined in advance, not by the criterion of offering the highest price. It is unclear in this case, the observance of the principles of price policy formation and the possibility of monitoring such cases. There is no possibility of independent verification of data through access to open data sources due to the need to ensure government procurement for military needs.

• There is no publicly understood and legally regulated process of inspection and non-admission to the purchase of unprocessed wood and participation in the logging business by companies related to the aggressor country of Russia and Belarus.

In order to normalize the process of control over the legality of timber harvesting in martial law, the specialists of the Forestcom offer a number of optimizations of this process. They were set out in an appeal to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine:

• To recommend to the State Forestry Agency of Ukraine to publish in open access and weekly update data on the assignment of all forest users of Ukraine to one of two categories in relation to the occupied (unoccupied) territory, namely: 1 - those not affected by military aggression (unoccupied forest users) and 2 - those affected by military aggression and at high risk of illegal logging (occupied forest areas).

•  Consider illegally harvested timber after February 24, 2022, in forest enterprises, forest areas which are high risk (forest enterprises that are under the influence of war or occupied), and accordingly do not consider legal issued Certificates of Origin of timber (timber) and export of such products from these territories;

• Provide authorized access through the user's e-account (within three days from the date of e-notification) to forest electronic maps with the location of felling, registers of issued logging tickets and electronic timber accounting, etc. - employees of the State Coinspection and interested professionals (including specialists of public organizations), which specialize in studying the legality of the origin of harvested timber and perform the functions of independent subjects of information verification;

• Monitor the legality of timber ticket assignments by forest users and timber sales prices under "direct" contracts, and periodically (monthly) publish the results of such monitoring;

• Oblige forest users to publish the percentage and number of concluded direct contracts and average monthly prices in terms of sold forest products;

• Make changes to the procedure for issuing certificates (Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine of December 21, 2005, N 1260) and add to the issued certificates of origin of wood certificate of the Chamber of Commerce on certification of force majeure (force majeure) at the location of the forest user in relation to to the occupied (unoccupied) territory;

•  Oblige exchanges that organize the harvesting of harvested timber require all bidders to submit excerpts from the USREOU to participate in auctions for the sale of unprocessed timber, indicating the beneficial owners and information about their affiliation to the aggressor country of Russia and Belarus or not. In case of presence of such affiliation - to exclude from participation in the auction;

• In the agreements of forest users with business entities and contractors a separate appendix to provide extracts from the USREOU indicating the beneficial owners and information about their affiliation to the aggressor country of Russia and Belarus.

NGO «Forestcom» also proposes to hold an online meeting of stakeholders from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, the State Agency of Forest Resources, public environmental organizations and other stakeholders to discuss ways to independently verify the legality of timber harvesting in Ukraine.

«Solving this problem will establish democratic principles for the development of state and public relations, independent public control over the legality of logging in Ukraine, verification of data on the sustainability of forest use, as well as maintaining opportunities to export timber to environmentally sensitive EU markets from Ukraine during hostilities», says the appeal to the Ministry of Environment.

Anyone can sign to the appeal by filling out a small form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tHRoSaHwsDLdpN_Rjl-Q59wt7VRptQVGcVIeSyQ1bcI.