WWF VOLUNTEERS AND THE MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT OF KUBAN HAVE REVEALED ILLEGAL LOGGING WORTH ALMOST 9 MILLION RUBLES
Within the framework of “People for Nature” project, WWF-Russia is monitoring the legality of logging in the Caucasus. This time, illegal logging was detected in 4 areas of Afipskiy and Goryacheklyuchevskiy Forestries in Krasnodar region. In March, WWF-Russia notified the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Krasnodar region about that. In April, WWF volunteers were invited to participate in joint inspections. It should be noted that a few years ago there were no such invitations from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Kuban.
The employees of Goryacheklyuchevskiy Forestry have shown special scrupulousness. They has checked and confirmed almost all the violations identified by WWF even without joint visits.
The situation was a little more complicated with the raids in the Afipskiy Forestry. By an amazing coincidence, the logging areas, where joint inspections could not be carried out, were the only ones where no signs of violations identified by the volunteers were confirmed.
As a result of joint work and calculations, Forestry employees recorded 170 cubic meters of illegally cut oak and ash wood with damage of almost 9 million rubles.
At the moment, employees of Forestries have sent all the information to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Severskiy district and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Goryachiy Klyuch to conduct an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.
WWF-Russia will monitor the progress of the pre-investigation check. In a similar situation, last year, decisions were issued “Orders to dismiss criminal complaint” on 4 facts of exceeding the volume of harvesting in Afipskiy Forestry (which were confirmed by Forestry’s officers). This fact raises doubts about the objectivity of decision-making process.