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BROC Report 3

BROC Report 3

Identification of violations in the timber business in Chuguevski district and developing monitoring capacity in the Delight commune in Topolevy town

REGION: Primorsky

DISTRICT: Chuguevski

DATES OF RIDES: March 4th - 6th, 2003

PARTICIPANTS:

Artur Romanenko (BROC)
Roman Fadeev (BROC)
Serguei Markov (Forest Inspection)
Alexei Bezruchko (Delight)
Eduard Sluzhenko (Delight)

Summary

In the town of Topolevy our group met a spiritual and environmental commune called Delight (Blagodat). Delight was created with the support of BROC three years ago and its principal goal is to encourage a sustainable forest lifestyle based on harvesting and trading NTFP and organic agriculture. The commune's leader, Mr Alexey Bezruchko, who organizes permanent monitoring activities of the local forest station (leskhoz), reported that the forest service manager, Kozlov, participated in illegal timber commerce. In the course of the monitoring work, the group also found cases of illegal logging and illegal timber depots in other towns of the district, more specifically in the towns Bulyga-Fadeevo, Chuguevka and at the train station of Novo-Chuguevka. These areas are rarely visited by the authority's forest inspectors.

Lumber facility in Chuguevski, Photo © BROC

Purpose

The purpose of the fieldwork was to confirm reports of forest violations received from Delight. The district is a key tiger habitat, and important in terms of biodiversity.

Introduction

After a recent resolution by the Primorsky governor to cut the number of timber depots from about 100 to 14, it was essential to investigate how steadily increasing volumes of timber will be transferred to markets in China and Japan through the remaining 14 timber depots. It has been reported that the measure has not reduced the scale of illegal logging. Instead it has become easier to conceal illegally harvested timber in the larger timber depots.

Findings

In the town of Bulyga-Fadeevo, our rangers observed a large quantity of logging equipment and trucks loaded with timber heading towards the municipal district centre Chuguevka. In Chuguevka, our monitors identified 4 sawmills with storage areas containing fir timber. In Novo-Chuguevka town, which is the last point of the Trans-Siberian railroad, a series of temporary timber storage areas was found. These storage areas belong to the companies Avanguard, Primorlesprom and Terminal, which are all on the list of the biggest loggers of Primorye. The storage areas contained hundreds of thousands of logs of ash, oak, elm, larch, aspen, birch, fir and all had railway-loading facilities. During 30 minutes on the rail crossing point rangers counted 6 rail cars loaded with ash and fir, going towards timber storage areas. These are registered mainly in Chuguevski, some in Krasnoarmeiski Districts (North) and in Vladivostok. Workers at the storage areas said that Chinese wholesalers are always ready to purchase timber without any documents. The Chinese are said to have easy access to fake logging licenses from the local leskhoz with all required stamps and documents. A large timber depot was also observed in the area of Arsenyevsky leskhoz, south of Chuguevski district. Leaving Arsenyev, riders found another sawmill in the town of Sysoyevka. They also observed logging equipment, trucks and sawmills in Novomikhailovka and Koksharovka.

Recommendations

  • Reduction of the number of timber depots should be combined with strengthening forest inspection measures.
  • Chuguevski district is a biodiversity hotspot and efforts should be made to protect at least the tiger corridor, which allows tigers to cross from southern to north Primorye.
  • Shipments of timber not accompanied by a bank invoice for customs inspection should not be considered legal.