Directive No. 1724-r of September 26, 2013
The document was drafted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in accordance with the President’s Instructions No. Pr-1037 (Clause 1, Subclause “а”) of May 7, 2013.
Based on the results of the April 11, 2013 meeting of the State Council Presidium, the President instructed the Government to draft and approve state policy guidelines on the use, protection, conservation and reproduction of forests aimed at increasing the forest industry’s contribution to the socioeconomic development of the country by adopting an intensive method for the use and reproduction of forest resources and for improving timber processing technologies.
This Directive outlines the principles and key objectives, priorities and tasks of the state in the use, protection, conservation and reproduction of forests, as well as the mechanisms for implementing and achieving them.
The Government policy is stipulated in the economy (ensuring the efficient management of the forest industry and increasing its GDP based on market demand); the environment (creating or maintaining a favourable environment and preserving the biospheric role of forests in Russia); and the social sector (improving the quality of life of people connected with the timber industry and sustaining the socioeconomic development of the forested areas).
These goals are to be achieved through the fulfilment of 10 tasks, including more efficient management of the forest industry, more intensive use and reproduction of forests, further development of the domestic timber and paper industry, making the forest industry more competitive, more effective forest protection and conservation, increased productivity and improved composition of forests, and conditions for ensuring that people contribute to decisions on timber relations.
Legislative, administrative, technical, financial and economic mechanisms are to be used to ensure the fulfilment of these tasks.
For example, the task of more intensive use and reproduction of forests includes the development of new forms of using forests; improvement of the principles of forest division depending on targets, legislation and usage patterns; drafting of new timber working and nature conservation standards; development of the transport, industrial and energy infrastructure through public-private partnerships; creation and introduction of new incentives for encouraging a more efficient use of forests; and increasing the competitiveness of the forest industry, above all secondary processing projects designed to produce higher added value.
The task of increasing forest productivity and improving the composition of forests located in different-purpose areas provides for developing and introducing new financial and economic mechanisms to encourage forest reproduction and cultivation, and introducing modern forest growing plantations for the forest industry and bioenergy.
The targets of the state policy on the use, protection, conservation and reproduction of forests, the figures and deadlines for achieving them, as well as the people responsible for this at the federal and regional levels shall be provided in the federal and regional development programmes of the forest industry.
The adoption of the state policy guidelines on the use, protection, conservation and reproduction of forests will lead to the amendment of two federal programmes – Forestry Sector Development 2013-2020 and Developing Industry and Increasing Competitiveness to 2020. The amendments will include the improvement of the forest and related legislation, the legal framework, and development programmes and plans of the forest industry, as well as government regulation of priority investment projects in the forest industry through mechanisms of stimulation, primarily for supporting secondary processing and bioenergy.
The state policy on the use, protection, conservation and reproduction of forests will be financed from the federal budget within the limits approved for government programmes for the given year, regional budgets and extra-budgetary sources.
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