Why Putin was faced with the question of revising the Forest Code of the Russian Federation
The situation with natural disasters in our country has reached an unprecedented level, which President Vladimir Putin was forced to admit at the highest level. The South of Russia is exposed to the most powerful flooding, while the North, on the contrary, is dry and ablaze with a bright flame. The head of state, who flew to the Chelyabinsk region, spoke about the long-term climate agenda as a way to resolve the problem, but is it one thing? Isn't it time, finally, to heed the calls to revise the current forest legislation, which has now been echoed personally by the Minister of Emergency Situations?
The question of the causes and scale of natural disasters that befell Russia is complex and multifaceted. Let's try to separate "flies from cutlets" and bring some clarity to it.
On the one hand, President Putin is certainly right, and global climate change is making a devastating contribution. The blocking anticyclone, which settled for a long time over the central part of Russia, prevented the west-east transport of air and caused an abnormal heat to the entire Moscow region. More about this we told previously. Similar problems are observed in the North-Eastern part of the country. The prolonged heat in Yakutia dried up forests and lowered the water level in reservoirs. The situation was aggravated by the invasion of the silkworm, due to which the conifers were left without needles and dried out. A "dry" thunderstorm was enough for all this to flare up, and the fire was able to spread rapidly, and giant forest fires continue to this day. In the South of Russia, on the contrary, everything is flooded with water, for which experts blame cyclones and a general rise in the temperature of the Black Sea. River floods and sudden floods have also become a real scourge of the Old World. Drowns prosperous Germany, Poland and other neighboring European countries, about which we have also already told... Thus, the climatic factor is really present, and there is nothing you can do about it, you have to somehow adapt.
On the other hand, the human factor is very strong in the problem of forest fires in our taiga. Let's dwell on this point in more detail:
At firstas we have repeatedly complained, colossal damage to our forests was caused by the adoption in 2007 of the new Forest Code. What happened then? By the will of the legislators, the unified federal service of the Forest Guard was destroyed, the concept of forestry enterprises was eliminated and the institution of foresters, who must keep order in the economy entrusted to them, and drive poachers and "black lumberjacks", was abolished. The authority to control forests from a single center was transferred to the regions, but without proper funding and materialtechnical base. On the other hand, “effective private business” received the right to lease forests, but what exactly these entrepreneurs are doing there is not easy to establish because of the artificially created staff shortage. And then we still wonder why the taiga is being cut down and the "round timber" is taken out to China without hindrance, and then the forests burn. From year to year, the scale of fires, natural and man-made, designed to hide the sites of illegal logging, only increases. We have sunk to the point that the regional authorities are allowed not to put out forest fires at all, if they do not directly threaten populated areas.
While journalists and people in the industry have been talking about this to everyone for almost 14 years, they were only laughed at. But now the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Vladimir Zinichev has already raised the issue with the president. The minister asked to "allow" rescuers to extinguish the forests, even if the fires do not threaten the settlements:
We ask you to consider the issue - this will require amending the legal framework - about the possibility of attracting the forces and means of the Ministry of Emergency Situations to work in forests when the federal level of response is announced. Now we can do this only in the event of a threat to populated areas.
Asked for permission, Karl! Well this is just some kind of savagery! And then the head of the Emergencies Ministry asked President Putin to do what we have been writing about for many years:
In our opinion, in order to stabilize the situation with wildfires, it is necessary ... to return to the federal level control and oversight functions for the protection and reproduction of forests.
Finally...
Secondly, it is necessary to change the very attitude towards forest resources in Russia. I really do not want to arrange "dancing on the bones of the dead", but without this, alas, the picture will not be complete. Recently, we wondered why Russian amphibious planes extinguish fires in distant Turkey, when our native taiga is burning with a blue flame? It seems like the federal authorities are thus trying to demonstrate our ardent friendship with the Turkish "Sultan" Erdogan. And God be with him, if everyone returned home safe and sound. But yesterday, while extinguishing fires in Turkey, a Be-200 with Russian and Turkish specialists fell. Everyone on board the aircraft was killed. Our sincere condolences to their families.
But what did they die for? For the safety of the forestry of unfriendly Turkey, when our Yakutia is on fire, and firefighters and volunteers fall off their feet from fatigue, trying to extinguish it? Perhaps if they had stayed at home, everyone would have been alive? Probably, it is worthwhile to build priorities differently, first extinguishing the home, and then helping the not most pleasant neighbor, isn't it?
- Sergey Marzhetsky
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