The Federation Council proposed to recreate the Ministry of Forestry in Russia

The First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Agricultural and Food Policy and Environmental Management Oleg Kuvshinnikov proposed re-establishing the Ministry of Forestry and the Timber Industry Complex in Russia. According to the senator, this is necessary for the successful implementation of the country's forestry development strategy.

Oleg Kuvshinnikov, senator of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation: “For the successful implementation of the strategy, in my opinion, it is necessary to return to consideration of the issue of creating the Ministry of Forestry and Timber Industry of the Russian Federation, because now the powers are blurred. Some of the powers are in the Ministry of Natural Resources, some in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. These two departments, unfortunately, do not fully control the entire chain of creating high added value products. Therefore, we see that in the structure of the country’s gross domestic product, the timber industry complex occupies less than 5%.”.

Let us recall that until August 2010 Rosleskhoz was subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, from 2010 to 2012 - directly to the Government of the Russian Federation, and since 2012 Rosleskhoz has been under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation.

Olga Kalyuzhnaya, President of the Russian Timber Association: “We welcome proposals that will help determine the federal executive body responsible for both KPIs in the field of forestry and the forest industry. We believe that in this case it would be correct to redistribute powers in the field of control and supervision in forests and assign them to another government agency in order to minimize corruption risks.”.