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P 151150Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
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INFO RUEHYG/AMCONSUL YEKATERINBURG 3699
RUEHVK/AMCONSUL VLADIVOSTOK 3346
RUEHLN/AMCONSUL ST PETERSBURG 5468
RUEHCP/AMEMBASSY COPENHAGEN 1679
RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIVE
RUEAEPA/HQ EPA WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF INTERIOR WASHDC
RHMFIUU/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHINGTON DC
RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MOSCOW 002366 
 
AIDAC STATE FOR USAID/E&E 
STATE FOR OES/STC, OES/PCI, EUR/ACE, EUR/RUS, EUR/PGI 
INTERIOR PLEASE PASS TO USFWS 
USDA PLEASE PASS TO U.S. FOREST SERVICE - LARA PETERSON 
COPENHAGEN FOR ERIK HALL 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV EAGR KGHG EAID KCRM SOCI PREL RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIAN ILLEGAL LOGGING -- AN OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE 
 
REF: Vladivostok 5 
 
MOSCOW 00002366  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PLEASE PROTECT ACCORDINGLY. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: The USG has an opportunity to work with Russia to 
combat illegal logging, and increasing reasons to do so.  Russia 
contains more of the world's forested area than any other country -- 
approximately 20 percent -- and between 10 and 30 percent of wood is 
harvested illegally.  Illegal logging leads to environmental 
degradation, exacerbates global climate change, and disrupts trade 
and local economies.  Russia's illegal logging problem is magnified 
by systemic flaws in the forest management system and an inadequate 
legal framework, many stemming from the new Forest Code of 2006. 
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has worked with some Russian regional 
governments to combat illegal logging.  There are several new 
opportunities for cooperation on this issue, including the planned 
new Protocol of Intent between the USFS and the Russian Federal 
Forestry Agency, as well as the Embassy's proposal for $200,000 in 
FY2008 performance funds to address illegal logging.  END SUMMARY. 
 
Russia's Forests - World's Largest and Most Degraded 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶2. (U) Russia contains approximately 22 percent of the world's 
forested area, more than any other country.  (NOTE: Second-place 
Brazil has 16 percent.  END NOTE.)  Russia's boreal forests are the 
Earth's largest forested region.  Russia has more than 55 percent of 
the world's conifers, which comprise over 21 percent of the world's 
growing stock, and 11 percent of the world's live forest biomass. 
Russia's over 887 million hectares of forest and woodland cover 52 
percent of its land area -- equivalent to about 95 percent of the 
area of the United States, including Alaska.  Boreal forests make up 
about one-third of the world's forested area and one-third of the 
world's stored carbon.  Together, Russia and the United States have 
two-thirds of the world's boreal forests.  This broad band of mixed 
coniferous and deciduous trees stretches across northern North 
America, Europe and Asia, with taiga along its northern edge meeting 
Arctic tundra. 
 
¶3. (U) Russia's forests are vital economic, biodiversity, cultural, 
and climate change assets.  And as in many countries, they are under 
increasing threat from illegal logging, unsustainable forestry 
practices, and forest fires.  Illegal logging reduces the forests' 
carbon uptake; it is estimated that forest fires and illegal logging 
contribute 5-15 percent of Russian greenhouse gas emissions.  An 
August 25, 2009, ScienceDaily press release characterized Russian 
boreal forest as the world's most degraded and least intact and 
found that it has suffered the greatest decline in the last few 
decades. 
 
A Quarter of Russia's Logging Illegal? 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Estimates vary as to the amount of illegal logging.  In 
April 2008, the Environment News Service quoted Ministry of Natural 
Resources and Ecology (MNRE) Deputy Head Semyon Levi estimating that 
10 percent of Russian timber is illegally harvested.  Greenpeace 
Russia estimates are between 20 and 30 percent.  In some regions, it 
is estimated that up to half of the timber is being harvested 
illegally.  There are three types of illegal logging in Russia: 
 
-- unauthorized commercial logging operations; 
 
-- legitimate commercial operations that illegally augment their 
harvest by cutting timber outside of authorized zones; and 
 
-- non-commercial harvesting by locals for fuel, construction, and 
other personal uses. 
 
¶5. (U) Powerful organized crime groups are involved in illegal 
commercial logging, abetted by local corruption.  Poachers and 
organized crime groups even set fire to woodlands to facilitate 
illegal logging, later securing the contracts to clear the burned 
areas. 
 
¶6. (SBU) There are strong economic incentives for illegal logging, 
particularly in border regions close to foreign markets.  But the 
 
MOSCOW 00002366  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
extent of illegal logging is driven primarily by systemic weaknesses 
in Russia's forest management practices.  In 2006, Russia introduced 
a new forest code intended to encourage sustainable forest use by 
large corporations.  Instead, forestry experts have told us, the new 
code decimated forest protection.  It decentralized forest 
management by moving forestry administration from federal to 
regional authorities, assigned the responsibility for forestry 
infrastructure and reforestation to lessee logging companies, and 
did away with the federally employed cadre of forest rangers that 
once enforced a standardized set of federal regulations.  Forestry 
management is now subject to the vagaries of regional budgets and 
governments. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Illegal logging is also aggravated by the lack of effective 
prosecution.  Prosecution is hindered by the absence of an effective 
timber tracking system to establish a chain of custody for every 
tree that is cut.  Once trees are cut and loaded onto trucks, 
internal customs officials and forestry inspectors have no way of 
knowing the exact origin of the timber.  Weak enforcement and 
monitoring is also a problem, with the number of forest rangers 
reduced dramatically by the new forest code.  In one region, the 
number of rangers was reduced from 200-300 to only three.  Some law 
enforcement officials claim that another obstacle is the poorly 
written, vague body of laws that demand a standard of proof that is 
extremely difficult to achieve.  A police official in the Ivanovo 
region told the English-language daily "Moscow Times" that 
prosecuting illegal loggers is nearly impossible because, unless the 
loggers are caught in the act, they can show lease documents from 
anywhere in Russia and claim that they are simply transporting the 
timber.  This inadequate legal framework raises concern that persons 
caught logging illegally cannot be prosecuted in a timely and 
effective manner, which the U.S. Forest Service asserts is critical 
to effective forest management. 
 
¶8. (SBU) China is the primary market for illegal Russian timber, 
much of which reaches the United States as finished products.  A 
long investigative report in "The New Yorker" reported in October 
2008 that the greatest traffic in illicit wood is thought to be from 
Russia to China.  Commercial illegal logging for export to China is 
concentrated in the Far East border regions.  According to a 2007 
U.S. Forest Service report, 20-50 percent of timber harvested in the 
Krasnoyarsk region is illegal, with most sent to China.  In January 
2009, authorities caught a Chinese company attempting to export 
4,000 cubic meters of oak and ash valued at 2 million dollars from 
Primorye using fake export documents.  Two officers of the 
Khabarovsk Regional Service for Economic Crimes detained in 2007 
were ultimately found guilty of aiding Chinese and Russian companies 
in illegally harvesting and exporting Russian timber.  Given the 
high percentage of illegally harvested timber, it is particularly 
worrisome for the United States that 50 percent of soft wood and 90 
percent of hardwood harvested in the Russian Far East and Siberia 
ends up in the United States as finished goods after being processed 
in China, according to Denis Smirnov, coordinator of the World 
Wildlife Fund's forestry program in Primorye (reftel). 
 
Growing Attention to Illegal Logging 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶9. (SBU) The Russian government and local communities are 
increasingly aware of the effects of illegal logging.  We are slowly 
seeing an increase in activities to promote sustainable forestry and 
to stop illegal logging. 
 
-- FLEG Commitments:  In the St. Petersburg Ministerial Declaration 
at the 2005 Europe and North Asia Forest Law Enforcement and 
Governance conference (ENA FLEG), 44 governments, including Russia 
and the United States, expressed their intent to take action to 
improve forest governance and combat illegal logging and associated 
forest crimes.  The Declaration includes an Indicative List of 
Actions to implement the declaration and calls for a second 
Ministerial within 5 years to assess progress made and decide on 
further actions needed. 
 
-- Plans for a National Timber Tracking System:  In April 2009, 
Alexei Savinov, head of the Ministry of Agriculture's Federal 
Forestry Agency, announced that by 2011 Russia will have introduced 
an integrated system to control timber circulation and decrease 
 
MOSCOW 00002366  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
illegal logging.  With support from the U.S. Forest Service and 
USAID, Krasnoyarsk Authorities in 2008 sought funding from the 
Ministry of Natural Resources to introduce a timber tracking system. 
 (NOTE: At that time the Forestry Agency was under the umbrella of 
the Ministry of Natural Resources; now it is under the Ministry of 
Agriculture.  END NOTE.)  Krasnoyarsk, in Central Siberia, is 
Russia's second largest administrative territory, producing 
one-fifth of Russia's total timber output.  According to USFS 
estimates, 20-50 percent of Krasnoyarsk's timber is harvested 
illegally.  The lack of federal funding and subsequent personnel 
changes in both the Russian Federal Forest Agency and in the 
Krasnoyarsk administration have so far stymied introduction of this 
pilot chain-of-custody system. 
 
-- Increased Domestic Timber Processing:  Both President Medvedev 
and Prime Minister Putin have endorsed the development of timber 
processing as a national goal.  Although their support is driven 
mainly by economic concerns -- creating jobs and developing local 
industry by exporting finished products instead of raw wood -- 
creating timber processing facilities in Russia could help reduce 
illegal logging.  By expanding local processing capacity, Russia 
would reduce the incentive to export illegally harvested raw timber 
to other countries for processing, though mechanisms will have to be 
put in place to ensure any illegally harvested raw timber is not 
instead simply processed directly in Russia itself.  Officials in 
Tomsk informed us that they are facilitating the establishment of 
Chinese wood processing facilities in the region, which they noted 
might discourage the export of illegal wood.  As part of the 
government's goal to increase domestic wood processing they have 
gradually increased the export tariffs on logs.  On April 1, 2008, 
the tariff increased to 25 percent, but not less than 15 euros, and 
as of January 1, 2010, up to 80 percent, but not less than 50 euros, 
making the cost of importing unprocessed logs from Russia 
prohibitive. 
 
-- Civil Society Activity:  Local residents in Primorye, frustrated 
by the inaction of police and local authorities, often stage 
protests to attract attention to illegal logging.  WWF and other 
environmental NGOs support their efforts.  Residents of Melnichnoye, 
a village north of Vladivostok, staged a summer 2008 protest against 
"sanitary cutting," whereby logging companies supposedly harvest 
dead trees and clean woodlands after fires (reftel).  In fact, 
according to villagers, loggers cut down healthy trees and leave 
behind wastelands instead of protected forests. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Organized crime is a serious threat to civilian 
environmental activists in illegal logging locales.  According to 
WWF and nature preserve workers in the Russian Far East, the local 
"forest mafia," a group engaged in illegal timber operations, has 
openly declared war on those working to preserve forests and enforce 
environmental laws.  The house of Yuriy Bersenev, a WWF project 
coordinator who works to safeguard protected nature preserves, was 
set on fire by unknown perpetrators in the winter of 2009.  This 
incident came on the heels of two earlier attempts to intimidate WWF 
staff in Primorye in December 2008, including another case of arson 
(ref A).  Yuriy Bersenev attributes the current drastic situation to 
the weakness of national forest legislation and the rampancy of 
corruption in the Russian Far East, USFS is beginning work on a 
$200,000 performance fund project to create linkages between NGOs, 
law enforcement, business, wardens, and regional officials to reduce 
illegal logging. 
 
-- Lacey Act:  The Lacey Act amendments of 2008 expanded the 
statute's anti-trafficking protections for the purpose of combating 
illegal logging.  The act now covers timber illegally harvested in 
the country of origin and brought into the United States, either 
directly or through manufactured products.  The reinforced Lacey Act 
has prompted large timber-product importers such as Wal-Mart to 
reexamine their supply chains to ensure compliance.  Consequently, 
the Lacey Act puts significant pressure on regional governments in 
Russia to fight illegal logging at the risk of losing the business 
and contacts so valuable to their economies.  With the Lacey Act 
calling attention to the international trade in illegal timber, 
Russian and Chinese businesses are more conscious of the need to 
prove legality to American companies, leading them to seek official 
logging permits from the Federal Forestry Agency.  (NOTE: EST Moscow 
has Lacey Act materials in Russian.  Please contact Debbie Morton, 
 
MOSCOW 00002366  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
mortondl@state.gov.  END NOTE.) 
 
COMMENT: Potential for Expanded Cooperation 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) The United States and Russia have a number of 
opportunities to work bilaterally and multilaterally in the coming 
year to stem illegal logging: 
 
-- A new protocol of intent between USFS and USAID, jointly, and the 
Russian Federal Forestry Agency, will be signed in the next few 
months. The POI addresses several forestry issues, including illegal 
logging. It can help spur policy dialogue and exchange of best 
practices on implementing environmental regulations, promoting 
sustainable forestry practices, engaging civil society, and 
expanding environmental education. It should also assist in reducing 
the number and extent of fires through increasing the forest 
managers' monitoring capacities. USFS specialists are attending an 
October workshop in Khabarovsk, which they see as a valuable 
stepping stone in the larger illegal logging project. 
 
-- Russia took the initiative to host the 2005 FLEG conference, and 
the U.S. has played a critical role as organizer in the program. 
With a planned assessment of progress in 2010, the United States has 
an opportunity to become more involved. 
 
-- The U.S. can also cooperate with Russian law enforcement to help 
expand its capacity to investigate the causes of illegal logging and 
forest fires and their connection to organized criminal groups. 
 
¶12. (SBU) One possible model for cooperation is the May 2008 
U.S.-China Memorandum of Understanding on Illegal Logging and 
Associated Trade.  A similar agreement with Russia, which could even 
involve China as a third party, might facilitate cooperation among 
the three countries to strengthen forest law enforcement and 
governance. 
 
BEYRLE