Dmitry Mitskevich

Forests in the Ukrainian Carpathians are on the verge of extinction, and the country is facing an environmental disaster of unprecedented proportions, environmentalists say. Black lumberjacks unauthorizedly export entire echelons of Smereks abroad, earning millions of dollars from this. Moreover, according to locals, deforestation has sharply intensified over the past two years.

The scale of the disaster can be assessed from the shocking bird's-eye photos of bald mountain slopes that appeared on the Internet. On one of them is the southern slope of Mount Popadya, at the junction of the Transcarpathian and Ivano-Frankivsk regions (where logging is strictly prohibited by law). Even in pre-revolutionary times (that is, in 2013), trees grew densely here, and now, less than three years later, a huge bald spot gapes. The Green Carpathians are slowly turning into a desert. According to information from deputy of the Transcarpathian Regional Council Yuriy Gnep, if earlier, for example, 40 thousand cubic meters of forest were cut down in the Mizhhirya region of Transcarpathia, now it is about one hundred thousand.

However, officials deny the massive uncontrolled cutting down of trees: they say that the percentage of cuttings meets the requirements for preserving the forest fund. The head of the Lviv regional forestry and hunting department, Anatoly Deineka, claims that they are fighting against illegal logging.

“Electronic timber accounting has been introduced in forestry enterprises. A special marker with a barcode is attached to each log, by which you can determine its characteristics and the place where the tree was cut down. Everything that happens in the forests can be seen on the forestry department website,” - he says.

The timber will be sold abroad

Meanwhile, the native mountains, according to some experts, may thin out even more: the authorities want to allow cut-down trees to be freely transported abroad. The government proposed to the Verkhovna Rada to cancel the ten-year moratorium on the export of unprocessed timber (round timber) adopted last year. This caused a mixed reaction among experts.

“The export of timber was frozen in order to somehow protect forests from destruction and support the domestic timber industry, which is on its last legs. After all, instead of going to Ukrainian enterprises and feeding our workers and the economy, logs are sold en masse to our Western neighbors. But this it is unprofitable: a cubic meter of raw materials costs 80-90 dollars, and processed wood is valued ten times more. Ukraine needs to develop its production as a raw material appendage, says forestry expert Igor Sheludko. “The moratorium on timber exports did not please the EU countries that buy it. We get wood for next to nothing, they make furniture and sell it to us at a high price.”

Europeans even give subsidies to companies so that they transport wood from Ukraine. They take care of their own forests. In Poland, Slovakia and Romania, trees are not cut down on an industrial scale. Moreover, Romanians equated illegal logging to a threat to national security. And in Sweden and Germany, for example, in order to cut even one valuable tree, entire commissions are assembled and ask permission from local residents. In our country, more than 300 thousand hectares of trees are cut down every year. At this rate, in a couple of years there will be no Carpathians left.

In Ukraine, forests are cut down "cleanly" with almost impunity, only periodically fining forest rangers ridiculous sums. Although they are just pawns in the illegal mass cutting of trees, the scheme is supervised by the forest mafia under the cover of big people. The sale of timber feeds the local police, the prosecutor's office, officials, bandits - "fixers" and customs officers who cover up smuggling (and the European "mytniks" also have a share). And billions of hryvnias are flowing past the state treasury.

However, economic expert Eduard Naumenko defends the lifting of the moratorium: “The ban on the export of round timber contradicts the Association Agreement with the EU and the conditions of Ukraine’s membership in the WTO. Due to the stop in timber exports, less currency will flow into the country and problems will arise with international loans, and “This is bad for the economy as a whole. In addition, the moratorium will be lifted with reservations: the forest will be sold at auction - without the right to export, and foreigners will be able to buy the unsold remains.”

According to Naumenko, the moratorium did not help solve the problem of deforestation. “Before its introduction, six months ago, trees began to be cut down in a barbaric manner, with triple force, in order to have time to remove them before the suspension of exports. For example, in Bukovina, just two months before the moratorium, nine times more timber was exported abroad than before, says Naumenko. - Yes, and when the law came into effect, wagons with timber continued to go abroad - businessmen always know how to circumvent prohibitions. We need strict control over logging.”

They cut healthy trees, but they say they are trash

Sources in forestry enterprises in Western Ukraine and environmentalists told Strana about the schemes by which forests are illegally cut down and the amount of profits. “The most common practice is cutting down under the guise of sanitary cleaning of a “sick forest.” That is, they cut healthy trees, writing them off as rotten,” ecologist Olga Voitovich told us. - Another scenario is that logs are taken out under the guise of firewood and cut down several times using the same logging tickets. This can be combated with the help of inspections and commissions, but we know that in Ukraine inspectors can be bribed. To solve the problem at least partially, it is necessary to abolish the sanitary rules for cutting down trees, under the cover of which trees are cut down.”

One of the most merciless logging takes place near the presidential residence in Guta, Ivano-Frankivsk region. Day and night, local residents cut down their native forest. The roads in these parts, along which dozens of trucks with trailers loaded with wood scurry almost around the clock, look like after a bombing (previously, timber was floated down the river, but this is more difficult and expensive). In every second village there are mini-sawmills where smereks are cut into boards and transported to neighboring Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland.

Locals anonymously admitted to Strana that this is a feeding ground for many of them. In the local mountains, one can see everywhere the luxurious “khatyns” built with forest money.

“You can’t live on tourists alone, you have to get by,” says a local resident who works part-time in a logging camp. For a cube of wood on the black market they fetch 600-700 dollars. And tens of thousands of cubic meters of wood are exported from the Carpathians every year. Employees of forestry enterprises, say locals, have been transferred to self-support, receive pennies, and so they “earn extra money.” They cut down valuable trees and sell them to intermediaries, who transport the timber to the West, making tens of thousands of dollars a week.

Another Hutsul, the owner of a tourist “sadyba,” convinces that he is not connected with the forest mafia. “I have enough for a living, but cutting down the Carpathians is more expensive for ourselves. Because of this, we are flooded; we ourselves are to blame for the floods. And then we ask for compensation from the state,” he is indignant. “What will we leave for the children - stumps and killed nature?! Very It hurts when centuries-old oaks are felled. Under the new government, they are cutting down many times more than before. It’s like with amber in the Rivne region - my godfather lives there, he says that illegal mining has increased. Previously, although the police were also in the “shares,” There was no such lawlessness, but now there is complete anarchy, there is no control, no one is afraid of anything, and the ban on the export of wood is in fact Filka’s letter.”

“We will drink imported water”

Experts warn that if nothing is done, Ukraine may face “ecological Armageddon.” According to ecologist Olga Voitovich, Western Ukraine may face natural disasters: new floods and drought.

“Rivers overflowing their banks are held back by trees, and when instead of them there are stumps, the stormy flow has no obstacles,” explains Olga Voitovich. “At the same time, rivers and wells in villages dry up, because trees perform a water-regulating function. Tree rhizomes contain a lot of moisture For example, spruce holds up to three tons of water, and when it is cut down, the moisture evaporates. The mountaineers are forced to walk a kilometer to the still babbling springs. Due to the destruction of the forest, the soil deteriorates, and greenhouse gases are formed in the cities in recent years. it has become very stuffy, there is not enough air? These are the consequences, in particular, of massive deforestation, it is not for nothing that they are called the lungs of the planet. If we do not put things in order in forestry, Ukrainians will begin to choke and drink imported water, because the sources will dry up. But in order to grow one. tree, it takes about forty years."

Dozens of trains are standing in Western Ukraine, waiting in line to transport timber abroad. Photo: Svetlana Korcheva

In the post-Maidan frenzy of total madness and impunity, criminals represented by Ukrainian officials, endowed with power, continue to deplete an already dying country. What is no longer possible to hide, what is too obvious and obvious, becomes public knowledge. But this same public is unable to change anything, and often has no desire. For for the crumbs of scraps from this crazy feast, he also condones the theft of his own land, working for the oligarchs and bandit clans of pseudo-politicians.

Apart from the uniqueness of the Crimean Peninsula, in pre-war times there were only two main regions in Ukraine with pristine lush vegetation and impeccable natural beauty. These are forest areas along the border with Belarus in parts of the Rivne and Zhytomyr regions, as well as the famous Carpathian Mountains, with their wonderful flora and fauna, clean air, and crystal rivers. The Carpathian mountain system, along with Ukraine, affects the territories of several Eastern European countries. These are Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia and Austria. These countries are potential buyers of Ukrainian timber, which “Nezalezhnaya” willingly and happily cuts down on the lands of the Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, and Uzhgorod regions.

Simultaneously with the outbreak of the civil war, deforestation was carried out semi-legally, secretly, and with caution. The bandits and their proteges were only eyeing the raw materials “pie”, biting lightly. Illegal logging, of course, was carried out, but its volumes were incomparable with the current destruction. There was a moratorium prohibiting the export of wood. At the moment, Europe itself demanded that Ukraine legalize the supply of forest raw materials by lifting the moratorium on its extraction. The current scale is simply amazing. According to some data, up to three hundred cars of round timber are shipped daily. According to the documents, everything passes like “firewood,” although the carriages contain excellent, freshly cut wood. Export is in full swing.

The most interesting thing is that for Ukraine this is not only a beautiful tourist area and protected pride, and not only the “green lungs” of the region. The forests of the foothills are also protection from mudflows that are frequent in these places. Heavy storm showers are common in these lands, and trees are a natural obstacle to mud avalanches, holding and fastening the soil with their roots. The size of bald spots in continuous vegetation is already visible not only from a helicopter or drone, but even from space. It's only the beginning.

The first photo shows what the Carpathian foothills looked like before the change of power in Kyiv. What follows is what is happening now.

Tiberium /website/

Ukrainian environmental communities often publish pictures from the series “it was” and “it became”, posting photographs taken with the help of quadcopters of the rapidly balding slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. Over the past three years, they have become covered with huge bald spots of illegal logging. Uncontrolled logging has become a common business for residents of the Carpathian region, Transcarpathia and Bukovina, and the absolute majority of wood goes abroad - although formally in Ukraine there is a moratorium on the export of Carpathian round timber - as logs cut down and cleared of branches are called.

Give round timber to Europe!

Timber trucks loaded with logs move almost openly along mountain roads, and entire trains of timber travel along railways. They can be seen even at the station of the regional center of Ivano-Frankivsk. According to the State Forestry Resources Agency of Ukraine, in the first half of 2017, about 14.4 thousand cubic meters of forest were illegally cut down in the country, and the amount of damage from poachers reached 85.8 million hryvnia (190 million rubles). Over the past year, loggers removed about 43.8 thousand cubic meters, which cost the state 200 million hryvnia (440 million rubles). Although everyone understands that these official data are nothing more than the tip of the iceberg of illegal logging. Moreover, according to Western Ukrainian journalists, official statistics on forest losses may be deliberately underestimated - so as not to once again shock the public with these data.

The scale of deforestation is so large that it causes a drop in prices for raw materials - over the past year and a half, the cost of round timber has decreased from 80 to 60, and even to 50 dollars per cubic meter. But even under these conditions, selling timber “to the West” is much more profitable than sending it to Ukrainian wood processing enterprises, which are steadily declining.

It is extremely difficult to prevent the implementation of a criminal scheme that leads from poaching to smuggling of felled timber. In conditions of a catastrophic decline in living standards, predatory deforestation is the only source of income for many residents of Western Ukraine, and the local law enforcement system is ineffective. The unpopular central government has not controlled the situation for a long time; corrupt security officials from various departments are usually themselves involved in poaching schemes. Plots are often guarded by armed semi-criminal groups operating under the “brand” of the “Right Sector” (an organization banned on the territory of the Russian Federation) and other far-right organizations.

In August, Bukovinian environmental activists intercepted a train loaded with round timber near the village of Glubokoe, on the road to the Vadul-Siret customs post, through which the main flow of cargo passes on the Ukrainian-Romanian border. According to some reports, this batch was intended for a well-known Romanian company that actively cooperates with “black” lumberjacks. However, the owners of the illegally harvested timber managed to free the train with the help of employees of the Chernivtsi prosecutor's office. In October, residents of the Storozhynetsky district of Bukovina tried to set up roadblocks on the roads to prevent the removal of timber - the guards of poachers cleared the way for timber trucks.

Everything was washed away

The concern of local residents is understandable: the disappearance of forests not only spoils the beautiful Carpathian views, but also creates conditions for catastrophic mudflows, which are increasingly affecting the region. In 2008, prolonged rains led to a huge flood, covering Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Chernivtsi, Transcarpathian and Vinnytsia regions. Dozens of houses in the Carpathians were demolished by powerful mudflows. Ukrainian ecologists directly pointed to the cause of the cataclysm - deforestation of mountain slopes, no longer capable of holding excess water and loose soil. Since then, the scale of deforestation has increased many times over - so the next major flood, triggered by a violation of the hydrobalance, will most likely not be long in coming.

Official Kyiv tried to deal with this problem purely formally. Following public pressure, in April 2015 parliament introduced a ten-year moratorium on the export of unprocessed timber to stop forest destruction and support the surviving wood processing industries.

Deforestation has not stopped, but the moratorium has seriously quarreled with its financial donors from. In May 2016, Brussels demanded that Ukraine lift restrictions on the export of round timber, threatening to freeze the next portion of the loan tranche totaling 1.8 billion hryvnia. Moreover, European officials directly pointed out to Kyiv that Ukraine’s actions contradict the terms of the Association Agreement with the European Union - for which, in fact, Euromaidan stood.

“The moratorium on exports is objectively perceived by our partners as a violation of the Association Agreement,” Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze admitted then. As a result, Ukraine received this money only in April of this year - after the president once again promised his European partners to lift the moratorium. But the Ukrainian authorities are aware of the unpopularity of such a decision and are still in no hurry to lift the formal ban on the export of timber.

Timber and other colonial goods

It seems that Brussels' patience is running out. In September, the head of the EU official delegation, Hug Mingarelli, warned that if the moratorium on the export of round timber is maintained, Ukraine will not receive the next third part of the loan. Apparently, this prompted President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Groysman to take decisive action in parliament.

The other day, on November 8, speaking in , the leader of the Radical Party said that the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers is actively pushing in parliament for the abolition of restrictions on timber exports. “You are pressing parliament to lift the moratorium on timber removal, because you need a loan from, and for this you want to continue exporting timber, instead of agitating them to bring equipment here, create jobs here in Ukraine, and not convert Ukraine into a raw material appendage to the powers that be,” Lyashko said from the podium.

Even the most loyal Ukrainian politicians are increasingly forced to call a spade a spade, stating that the victory of Euromaidan has turned the country into a supplier of cheap raw materials and labor for the EU economic system. And if necessary, European officials are ready to defend their interests as harshly as possible, taking advantage of the fact that the Ukrainian government is completely dependent on them, which takes on a pronounced character of colonial exploitation.

“European partners are no longer shy. They are not interested in Ukrainian cars, mechanisms, metals. There are no quotas for them, there are no support or integration programs. But raw materials, scrap metal, and agricultural products with a zero level of processing are quite in demand,” the former first deputy prime minister of Ukraine commented on the situation. - Now that Ukraine has lost almost all its positions and is driven into a corner, it’s time to raise issues that have not been resolved before. Do you want a loan for gas purchases? Do you want another tranche of macroeconomic assistance? Cancel the moratorium on timber exports! In fact, even under the current moratorium, round timber was exported under the guise of products, firewood, whatever. Nobody adheres to this moratorium - 70 percent of our forest goes to Europe. What they are driving from the border areas is not subject to accounting at all. Another thing is important: with Ukraine they are switching to the language of brutal dictatorship and blackmail. And this is a new reality that the current government has to live with. Unfortunately, so do the people of Ukraine.”

Back to the roots

It should be noted that a significant part of the Eastern Carpathians has already been subjected to large-scale deforestation, which began at the beginning of the twentieth century under the Habsburg dynasty that ruled Austria-Hungary and continued in the interwar period, when this region was divided between Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia. The railways that now transport Ukrainian timber to the EU were built by the Austro-Hungarian government specifically for logging needs. In 1924, the British company The Century European Timber Corporation entered into a ten-year concession with the Polish government to harvest 17 million cubic meters of timber, which caused enormous damage to Belarusian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian forests. Thus, in 1925 alone, British businessmen removed over 800 thousand cubic meters of wood from the territory of the Second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to the destruction of entire forest areas.

He called on his fellow citizens to chop wood for the sake of independence from Russian gas supplies. No one has yet thought about how long Ukrainian forests will last, but today it is already clear that the loss of natural resources turned out to be a very unexpected price for Ukrainians for the right to “enter Europe.”

People's Deputies of Ukraine voted for the draft law "On amendments to certain laws (regarding the introduction of a ban on clear cutting of fir-beech forests on the mountain slopes of the Carpathian region)." The decision was supported by 259 parliamentarians.

This bill is aimed at improving measures to protect fir and beech forests on the mountain slopes of the Carpathian region from clear cutting for both business and recreational purposes, the explanatory note says.

The document also notes that in 2000, a law was adopted that introduced a 10-year moratorium on clearing for primary use in spruce-beech forests on the steep slopes of the Carpathians. In 2011, this moratorium ceased to apply.

In 2015, in its raw state, it brought the Ukrainian economy $345 million in foreign exchange earnings, or 0.9% of total export earnings. Experts say this figure is completely incommensurate with the scale of losses: uncontrolled deforestation in the West has led to a decrease in forest cover from 16% in 1996 to 11% in 2015. To achieve the optimal level of forest cover of 20% in Ukraine today, new trees need to be planted on an area of ​​2.5 million hectares.

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Round timber: if they start cutting down again, we will be left without Carpathian forests

Here and there, from above, bald spots are visible in once dense plantings; in the mountains, the earth hangs terribly over the valleys - after the next downpours, mudflows will come down, destroying roads and houses. This is a common phenomenon in the Carpathians, but why don’t they think about its causes? Moreover, many country houses, and not only houses, hotels in the mountains are wooden. Below is a house - above is a bald clearing. It is doubtful that they are asking for permission to cut down a tree if it is growing outside the window. Which means it’s mine.

Due to logging schemes, the Ukrainian Carpathians are becoming like a desert

The State Forestry Agency reports that in 2015 the volume of illegal logging amounted to 24.1 thousand km. However, the department itself emphasizes that this figure has nothing to do with reality.

Recently appeared on the president’s website petition with the emotional headline “Immediately stop the barbaric deforestation of the Carpathian forests and the smuggling of round timber from Ukraine!” Now the petition has been signed by about 1,500 citizens out of the 25 thousand required for the appeal to be considered by the president.

There are several official types of felling: for general use, for the improvement of forests (the so-called sanitary), cutting for road construction, thinning.

How logging schemes work

Under the guise of destroying diseased trees, young and healthy trees are often cut down. In addition, clearing areas often turn out to be much larger than stated. After them, it seems that an epidemic occurred in the forest -There are only so large cutting areas left.

Another way to make money on timber is to write off “business” (high quality) wood as firewood and sell it to private companies at half the price, or simply cut it several times using the same lumberjack ticket.

Typically, felled forest is exported from Ukraine as cobblestones (the so-called unprocessed felled tree trunks). Although processed wood is much more expensive, 80% of wood is sold this way - to make it easier. At the same time Legal Ukrainian wood processing enterprises are barely surviving.

To keep track of felled trees, each official trunk must have an identification chip - a plastic label with a unique number. However, as local residents say, such chips are stored in “bags” in “black lumberjacks”.

Uncontrolled deforestation is not only the work of poachers who they smuggle it abroad on an industrial scale . Local residents are also actively cutting down forests for their own needs, which is justified by unemployment in the region.

Another puzzle of the overall picture of the raw material economy of Ukraine : Residents of mountainous regions go abroad to earn money, where they engage in carpentry, among other things. That is, it turns out that both people and raw materials leave the same regions, although forest processing could provide jobs to local residents and become a real sector of the economy.

It is also worth noting that smuggling schemes for the export of wood cannot be implemented only with the help of Ukrainian corruption. EU customs officers, where illegal timber is sent, should also be involved in this.

Forest for Donbass terrorists

In addition to smuggling and shipping abroad, the wood is cut and sold to the domestic market. However, sometimes Ukrainian recipients turn out to be completely unexpected.

Last summer, it became known that 52 wagons with contraband were detained in the ATO zone, including 12 trains with wood, which was transported for the “LPR” and “DPR” separatists. As the media wrote, this forest turned out to be not simple, but strategic - it was used to build new fortified areas for militants, although the documents stated that it was third-class timber, “for firewood.”

The scheme worked like this: Poltava and Chernigov forestry companies sold wood through auctions to a commercial company, which in turn resold it to the separatists.

Then the court seized 645 cubic meters. m of timber weighing almost 600 tons.

Traditionally, the law has had its supporters and critics. The first emphasized that it was necessary to protect local producers, while others said that the moratorium would only lead to a reduction in logging.

“This is a controversial decision. There are certain types of wood that are not processed in Ukraine, for example, thin gauges, but they are in demand abroad. On the other hand, the export of oak was prohibited. This is definitely necessary, because it is often not enough for Ukrainian producers,” - explains ecologist Oleg Listopad.

However, too little time has passed since the introduction of the moratorium to fully assess its effect.

Moreover, a new government bill was registered in the Rada, which proposes to lift the export ban. Its authors explain the need to resume exports by saying that the moratorium on timber exports violates not only the terms of Ukraine’s membership in the WTO, but also the provisions of the Association Agreement with the EU.

If the bill is adopted, the sale of unprocessed timber will be carried out at auction - separately for Ukrainian buyers, separately for non-residents.

At the same time, the volume of timber that could not be sold at auctions for domestic buyers will be put up for auction for non-residents.

It is not entirely clear how the new auction policy will affect the scale of timber cutting. It is logical that an export permit could lead to more intensive destruction of forests, which are already catastrophically thinning.