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BROC Report 8

BROC Report 8

Training of the local NGO Noosphere to work with law enforcement to protect endangered tree species of the prospective South-Primorsky Natural Park


REGION: Primorsky

DISTRICT: Shkotovskii

DATES OF RIDES: August 26th - 28th, October 15th - 16th, 2003

PARTICIPANTS:

Roman Fadeev (BROC)
Alexander Khluss (BROC)
Nikolai Serebrennikov (NGO Noosphere, Anisimovka)
Mikhail Sereda (Department for Fighting Economic Crimes)
Margarita Chipizubova (Pacific Institute of Geography)

Summary

BROC received alarming information from our partners in the Militia Department for Fighting Economic Crimes that there was a group of illegal loggers planning to cut and take off some amount of endangered fir in Shkotovski District. This was the place where we have our constant partner in forest monitoring: the NGO Noosphere in the town of Anisimovka. A Militia officer requested support in the form of a vehicle and a consulting specialist, since, by their information, fir logs might be cut some months ago and thus be hard to recognize and differentiate from the legal spruce. Although the area of this ride is not far from Vladivostok, we had to wait several days for a call and be ready to go in an hour, trying to catch loggers in the process of taking timber off the site. The first alarm in August was false - loggers did not start working, and riders spent 3 days waiting for them in the area. Only a second time, in October, brought the real operation: the thieves were caught in the moment of selling timber at the shipping point in Vladivostok and illegally logged fir was identified.

Purpose

Our goal was to stop logging or at least the sale of an illegally cut consignment of endangered fir. We intended to identify fir and to train local activists to do it whenever a similar notification is received. And finally, we intend to help initiate a lawsuit and to establish a new order of logging in the area, excluding felling of restricted trees, particularly on the reserved areas.

Introduction

An important particular of this ride was that in the first stage militia officers used special ultra-violet paint to mark the fir logs, already felled on the site and waiting for being taken off. At this time, it was important also to film the location with video cameras and record it with GPS to later confirm the initial location of the site and start a criminal lawsuit. Thanks to this work, even if riders might lose the trucks on the road to the city, they could find their marked logs anywhere on the shipping terminals with the special ultra-violet equipment. The key point to compiling enough documentation for the lawsuit was professional identification of endangered fir by the capable specialist, which would also help to provide broader public education by direct participation and by our broadcasting opportunity.

Findings

Actually, even though riders had already marked logs with the ultra-violet paint in August without a fir identification specialist, they did not need these marks for further identification, since they succeeded in pursuing the shady entrepreneurs up to the terminal in Vladivostok in October.

Since operators did not add new logs to the formerly logged pile, it was not easy for invited scientists from the Biology-Soil Institute and the forest service to identify logs which were several months old: the key identification of this kind of fir may be done by the needles only. Nonetheless, even though the forest service specialist seemed to be not completely independent from the commercial interest of the brigade, the participation of NGOs and independent scientists helped the militia officer to get appropriate justification documented.

Inspector marking doubtful fir log, photo ©BROC

Recommendations

  • It seems very important and essential for the South Primorye, the only area where endangered fir remains, to involve local NGO activists in forest use monitoring regularly and to train them to identify restricted species.
  • We recommended to our partners in the Department for Fighting Economic Crimes to contact us any time to involve NGO in anti-poaching forestry operations and thus increase their efficiency.