EU seeks to protect forests with curbs on illegal logging

The European Union says illegal logging is pervasive and is a threat to biodiversity.

Ukrainian timber exporters could be shut out of the $49 billion European Union wood market if they don’t comply with restrictions designed to curb illegal logging, which is rampant in the nation.

The measure, which will be enforced starting in 2013, bans the sale of illegally logged timber and requires EU importers to take steps to assure that they are in compliance.

Other traders in the EU supply chain will need to keep records of their suppliers and customers to allow the products to be traced.

Classified into 44 different product groups, the measure will affect wood-producing Ukrainian companies that either directly export raw-to-finished wood products to the EU or through intermediaries.

The regulation is an example of a growing trend to encourage proper forest management and discourage violators.

“Presently throughout the world, there is a movement toward sustainable forestry management,” said Viktor Mauer, head of the civic council under the State Forest Resource Agency. “

And in this relation, there is timber that is illegally harvested, and timber that is harvested in breach of biological diversity, for example.
The World Bank estimates that 20-30 percent of all timber harvested in Ukraine is illegally logged.
Experts say that current government procedures for certifying the legality of wood origins are weak and contain loopholes such as the ability to alter documents and opportunities for bribes to forest rangers.

Global annual losses from illegal cutting of forests, including governments’ loss of tax revenue, are estimated at more than $10 billion, more than eight times the total of official developmental assistance for sustainable forest management, according to World Bank calculations.

Forests cover 17.5 percent of Ukrainian territory, or some 603,000 square kilometers, according to the forest law enforcement and governance project financed by the European Union.

The EU says illegal logging is so pervasive that it poses a threat to forests and biodiversity.

Ukraine last year exported $828 million in timber and timber products, the Ukrainian State Statistics Committee reported.

The forestry sector accounts for roughly 1.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, more than $1 billion.

Serhiy Sagal, head of the Furniture Industry Association said that last year Ukrainian companies exported 2.9 million cubic meters of wood to the West, mostly to EU countries, and $50 million worth of furniture.

“The EU directive will affect everybody in the forestry industry. This is serious, it could be a real barrier to the EU market,” Sagal said.

“Nobody knows how to comply. The authorities aren’t informing us and they really should pay more attention, especially since the State Forest Resource Agency is the largest exporter of wood,” he added.

Roughly 10 percent of forestland – or 1 million hectares – is certified and about 30 wood-harvesting companies have certification that the origin of their wood is legal, according to Vitaliy Storozhuk, a forestry expert and consultant to the World Bank.

But more needs to be done to strengthen tracking systems, Storozhuk said.

The scope of wood certification needs to be broadened, the World Bank expert said, together with forestry management bodies.

“We should turn our efforts towards the state supervising the origin of wood, from harvesting to processing. It is necessary to develop or extend the concept of a national electronic wood tracking system,” he said.

According to the World Bank, sustainable forestry management is “hampered by: poor roads, overly conservative harvesting levels, and inappropriate forest classifications.”

Environmentalists say forests provide a broad variety of environmental, economic and social benefits including timber and non-timber forest products and environmental services essential for humankind, such as maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functions and protecting the climate system.

Ukraine ranks eighth in Europe in terms forestland percentage, the majority of which is located in the northern parts of the country and in the Carpathian Mountains where many old growth forests live.

The new EU legislation is similar to the U.S. Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to handle fish or wildlife produced illegally outside the U.S.

An amendment to the Lacey Act to extend it to timber products was agreed by the U.S. Congress in June 2008.

Medvedev Freezes Khimki Highway

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to the construction of a highway through the Khimki forest Thursday, marking a rare victory for a grassroots effort that the authorities heavy-handedly tried to squash but nevertheless swelled into a thousands-strong rally last weekend .

Medvedev, whose last public comment on the forest was a pledge to consider the issue after being asked about it in Paris on March 2, stopped the partial demolition of the ancient oak forest, planned to make way for an $8 billion highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg, after United Russia unexpectedly sided with growing public discontent over the project.

“Our people, including representatives of the political parties, from the ruling United Russia to opposition ones, as well as public groups and expert circles, say that additional analysis is needed,” Medvedev said in a two-minute video posted on his blog, standing with his back to the green foliage of a forest.

Medvedev promised to initiate a public discussion.

"I can't predict the result of the discussion, but the issue is resonating throughout society," he said.

Yevgenia Chirkova, the businesswoman who led the efforts to stop the deforestation, called the apparent change of heart a victory for civil society.

“I think it's time for a celebration already. Even if the decision is not final, the very fact that [Medvedev] stopped deforestation is a great victory,” she said."I think it will be followed by other victories because people will start believing in their own power."

Earlier Thursday, the head of United Russia's faction in the State Duma,Boris Gryzlov, urged Medvedev to “look into the situation” with the forest near Sheremetyevo Airport north of Moscow.

“A decision must be made either to change the highway's route or to proceed with the construction, but with a deeper understanding of the matter,” he said in a carefully worded statement on the party's web site.

Mayor Yury Luzhkov also supports an alternative route for the highway that would not require deforestation, Oleg Mitvol, a former federal environmental inspector who serves as prefect of the city's Northern Administrative District.

Luzhkov, who was on vacation this week, did not comment on the highway.

The government's backdown on the highway marks a stunning reversal on a decision that had been vigorously defended by the government and backed by the Supreme Court, despite surveys that indicated the project had little support from all levels of society. Public anger over plans caused the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to pull out of the project early this year.

Environmentalists and local residents, who blocked contractors from starting to clear trees by camping out in the forest in July, have been beaten by unknown assailants and questioned and detained by police both in the forest and during rallies in Moscow.

But the discontent continued to grow, climaxing with a rally of more than 3,000 people on Pushkin Square on Sunday. Rock legend Tury Shevchuk, who asked Prime Minister Vladinir Putin at a charity event in May to stop police crackdowns on rallies, headlined the rally and played two songs despite police efforts to enforce a concert ban imposed by City Hall.

Bono invited Shevchuk up on stage during U2's first-ever Russian show at Luzhniki stadium on Wednesday night (they sang Bob Dylan's classic “Knockin' on Heaven's Door”) for a performance that environmentalists said sent a clear signal to the authorities about the illegality of their crackdown on Khimki forest defenders.

“The fact that Bono was singing with Shevchuk was a clear answer to those who commit lawless actions,” said Sergei Tsiplyonkov, acting director of Greenpeace Russia.

Bono, an outspoken activist on various social issues, said during a meeting with environmentalists that he regretted not raising the Khimki forest issue during talks with Medvedev in Sochi on Tuesday and promised to assist the forest defenders, environmental activist Yaroslav Nikitenko told Interfax.

The activists' problems continued even on the day of a recent Moscow concert, with police targeting Greenpeace and Amnesty International activists, who usually stage small events before the band's gigs.

About 10 Greenpeace activists were asked to stop collecting signatures in support of Russian forests in the lobby of the Luzhniki stadium, Tsiplyonkov said. Amnesty activists also reported trouble with the police.

Artyom Troitsky, a prominent music critic and the host of Sunday's Pushkin Square rally, said Chirikova deserved all the praise. "She played solo, while Shevchuk and Bono were the backup vocalists," he said.

He said he felt encouraged about the state of civil society but worried that most Russians still did not care enough to stand up for their rights.

"This action shows that if people want something, it is possible to move mountains," he said in a telephone interview. "The other question is that in 99 percent of cases people don't want anything and prefer to live in the backwater."
The highway project was further complicated by the fact that the company contracted to construct it, theNorth-Western Concession Company, has been linked in media reports to Aekady Rotenberg, Putin's friend and former judo trainer.

Rotenberg denied the reports Thursday, saying Igor Koryashkin, who sits on the North-Western Concession Company's board, does not represent him and is an independent director.

But Koryashkin also sits on the board of the Novorossiisk sea port, which is controlled by Rotenberg.

Putin, who heads United Russia, did not comment on the Khimki forest Thursday. His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July that the deforestation would proceed.

Stanislav Belkovsky, an independent analyst, said United Russia was aware that Medvedev had planned to halt the highway project and suggested that cracks were emerging in its once-steadfast alliance to Putin.

"The decision shows that the party is responding to orders from the top powers represented by Dmitry Medvedev and not to Vladimir Putin, the party leader," he said.

The authorities are known for being tone-deaf to grassroots campaigns, viewing them as a threat to their power. But things appear to be changing ahead of the upcoming election season, which kicks off with October regional elections and will culminate with the presidential vote in 2012.

Last week, United Russia withdrew its support of Kaliningrad Governor Georgy Boos, who faced mass protests in his region earlier this year, even though Gryzlov had promised to back Boos as recently as July 16. Medvedev subsequently decided not to nominate Boos for a second term.

Environmentalists have scored a victory with the authorities before. After protests, then-President Putin in 2006 ordered that an oil pipeline that was supposed to be constructed near Lake Baikal be moved away from its shores.

Ukraine's `Hot Air' Bedevils Global Climate Deal

KONSTANTINOVKA, Ukraine -- Vladimir Gapor is a plumber by trade, but now he's a scavenger, prying bits of scrap steel from the ruins of his old factory and selling them for a pittance.
For others beyond this manufacturing graveyard, however, Ukraine's economic collapse has produced a potential multibillion-dollar bonanza. In an era of climate change regulation and carbon trading, Ukraine, ironically, is profiting from the smokeless smokestacks of its industrial shutdown.How well and how long it will profit is an under-the-radar issue complicating negotiations for a worldwide climate accord being sought at a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen next month.Gapor's old factory, which made glass for the Soviet military and space program, shut down in the early 1990s after the Soviet Union disintegrated. Private wrecking crews and desperate jobless people like Gapor then turned the town's industries, which once employed 16,000 workers, into heaps of bricks.In the days when Ukraine was a Soviet republic, Konstantinovka was a booming town of 100,000 with 25 factories. Concert music filled its Palace of Culture, its workers were rewarded with trips to Crimea's beaches, and its children with stays at mountain "pioneer camps." Today just five workshops still operate, and the population is down to 60,000, many unemployed having migrated to Moscow, Kiev or Western Europe to find jobs, leaving families behind.The surrounding province in eastern Ukraine, plagued by bad management and lack of investment, has lost 10 percent of its population, said Vladimir Morozov, an environmental engineer in the regional capital, Donetsk. Wealthy oligarchs, not communists, now rule the economy, he said, and they show no interest in rebuilding a wretched backwater.The industrial collapse has been bad for jobs but good for the climate. Ukraine produces less than half the greenhouse gases it did 20 years ago, and under a trading system devised in the negotiations for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, curbing the gases blamed for global warming, it is allowed to sell credits for every ton of carbon dioxide saved.Countries or companies that cannot meet commitments to reduce emissions can buy these "allowances" from those that have cut emissions more than required and have a surplus to sell. Point Carbon, a Norwegian-based consulting firm, estimates 9 billion allowances are available, mostly in Russia.Earlier this year, each one-ton allowance sold for $10 when Ukraine signed a $300 million deal with Japan. The Kiev government has almost 1 billion more tons to put on the market, said Irina Stavchuk of the National Ecological Center of Ukraine."The hot air business is the main goal of the government," Stavchuk said.Income from such deals is supposed to be earmarked for clean-energy and other "green" projects. But critics have questioned how well that guideline is followed.While Western industrial powers must cut carbon emissions, and many developing nations are asked to shift to low-carbon economic growth, a few Eastern European countries have little incentive to constrain their polluting, since they're already far below emissions limits.In a way, these nations have the best of both worlds. They can make millions selling carbon credits, while enjoying a comfortable cushion to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere without worrying about energy efficiency or cleaning up their factories.But the credits could lapse in 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. Russia, Ukraine and other beneficiaries want these pollution rights extended in the new deal to be struck at Copenhagen. Other countries want to redress what they believe is an unfair loophole. Carbon traders, meanwhile, fear the weight of hot air credits will drive down market prices sharply.As part of a new climate treaty, Ukraine is being asked to commit to a ceiling on emissions and it has pledged to emit 20 percent less in 2020 than it did in the benchmark year of 1990. Since its current emissions are about 52 percent below 1990, it will be left with plenty of credits to sell.Last week Russia, the biggest holder of hot air credits, increased its pledged 2020 target to as much as 25 percent below 1990 — about where its emissions are today."We have to get rid of this hot air problem because it really threatens the environmental integrity of the whole system," said Sven Harmeling, a climate expert for the nonprofit group Germanwatch.But a solution will be hard to find at Copenhagen when countries have so much at stake, Harmeling said.The billion-dollar diplomatic debate in the Danish capital seems a world away from grimy Konstantinovka, where ex-plumber Gapor chipped away at concrete blocks, plucking out steel reinforcement rods to sell at 1 hryvnia, or 12 cents, per kilogram (2.2 pounds)."We need to survive somehow," he said.Nearby, crusading local journalist Vladimir Berezin climbed onto a mound of rubble."We call this place the Cemetery of Communism," he said. A dozen 180-meter-tall (590-foot-tall) smokestacks stood like memorial obelisks over the devastation. The entrance to an abandoned building bore the slogan honoring Vladimir Lenin, founding father of the Soviet Union: "Our Aim is Communism and the Ideas of Lenin are Immortal.""It's true," Berezin said. "Here you can see Lenin's ideas. Here you see our communism."

Dark skies over Europe

More than 100 Russian airlines, including national carrier Aeroflot, could be banned from European airports in 2012 unless they clean up their environmental act.
The European Union has listed 4,000 international carriers which have work to do to meet new carbon dioxide targets ahead of legislation which comes into force on January 1, 2012, RIA Novosti reports.
The current list is a warning to airlines about the need to comply with the new rules or face losing out on lucrative Euro-routes.

Ukraine's Environmental Crisis

DONETSK, Ukraine -- Late last year, a tire repair factory in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine decided to bury smoking rubber waste in the ground not far from its building. The stench lingered in the air, drifting out over nearby villages.
Upset inhabitants finally had enough, and, in December, arranged a mass protest near the tire factory's gates. The press came and a scandal broke. In just a few days, the situation in Donetsk was known throughout the country.Anyone, however, who had hoped that the case would draw attention to the wretched state of the environment in Ukraine and improve the situation has been brought back to earth since then. The factory received a fine, and the controversy quickly quieted down. Despite factories in Donetsk and elsewhere in Ukraine continuing to break laws on waste disposal and management, prosecutors and lawmakers have been slow to react."They constantly bring old tires for processing, and putrid smoke hangs above our city all the time," Igor Kolodyazhnyi, a resident Makiivka near the rubber factory, said. "The air smells like cinders and chemicals. Living in such circumstances is simply impossible." Kolodyazhnyi said that although the problem in the Donetsk region is widely known about, no efforts are made to solve it.He believes that the interests of powerful local business groups are enough to discourage any pressure from the authorities. Other regions are also in bad shape, including those still scarred by the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident more than 20 years ago.KNOWN OFFENDERSThe air pollution in the Donetsk area is exacerbated by the fires that are common there due to the presence of flammable material. In January, for example, a large fire partly destroyed a local factory that produces nitric acid and ammonium nitrate.Although the Ukrainian Ministry of Extraordinary Situations cited carelessness as the reason that flammable waste products in the factory's storage facilities had been ignited, the authorities downplayed the seriousness of the accident and did not take significant action.In this industrial belt, accidents such as these are common, both in factories and in the mines. Officials have repeatedly declared their awareness of lax safety standards and environmental hazards and their intentions to take steps to prevent future occurrences.However, both state environmental officials and environmental activists say those words rarely, if ever, take the form of action."Accidents happen because chemical companies and those who oversee them … have become accustomed to the release of fumes into the atmosphere and the regular disposal of toxic waste in rivers," Oleg Kruglov, a specialist in environmental protection with the environmental advocacy group Chistaya Zhizn ("Pure Life"), said. Mariupol, a southeastern port city, has the most polluted air of any city in Ukraine, followed closely by Donetsk, he said. "The main question is, what must we do for the air in the region to become clean again?"State officials in charge of environmental protection readily admit the seriousness of the problem but say their hands are tied. Sergey Tretyakov, head of the State Administration of Ecology and Natural Resources in Donetsk Oblast, said that "reorganization and reconstruction of companies is the only way of solving this problem today."Nikolai Kostrov, chief of the Ukrainian State Ecological Inspection agency, said time is running out, however, as city and suburban sources of water, as well as the air and soil quality in cities, have reached critical levels. "At this time the area of garbage dumps exceeds the area of preserved territories in Ukraine," he said. "In the capital Kyiv, the most critical situation can be found at the water purification station in Bortnichi [a city suburb]. All sewage waste in Kyiv heads there. Impurities could break through the dike and flow into the Dnieper River if the equipment isn't updated quickly," he said.Anatoliy Golubchenko, deputy head of the Kyiv City administration, recently promised that Bortnichi station would be modernized and a new rubbish recycling plant would be built.Kostrov said his agency fines environmental law-breakers but admitted that such punishments, in reality, exist only on paper. In practice fines are often blocked in courts and by local authorities without explanation. In addition, environmental cases remain relatively low on the agenda of the office of the public prosecutor, with economic or criminal offenses given priority.Without the threat of punishment, or some form of state pressure, companies are unlikely to upgrade technology on their own. "We don't have extra money to put special filters in the factory, or to replace out-of-date equipment. I work and live at the plant, and I dislike the air-quality situation, but I can't do anything," the director of a factory in Donetsk, who asked to remain anonymous, said. He also noted that his factory belongs to a huge corporation that likely has the money to make the necessary changes but has not done so.IN THE DARKActivist groups have tried to increase public awareness of the problem, hoping to spur pressure on the authorities. The Crimean organization Ekologia i Mir regularly recruits members of the public to participate in environmental activities like cleaning up the city or planting trees. "Various waste products are gradually engulfing the Crimea, some produced here and others deposited here from other regions," said Svetlana Berezina, president of the national public ecological organization Zhivaya Planeta ("Alive Planet") who regularly takes part in Ekilogia i Mir's activities. "We're trying to show people the need to reduce the amount of waste they generate, to reuse or repair items rather than throwing them away, and to separate waste to be recycled. We also work to teach our children about environmental safety and waste management."The Ministry for Environmental Protection is working on its own concept for ecological education programs. According to ministry statistics, there are currently 326 departments in both middle and higher education establishments in the Ukraine for environmental studies. However, these programs often use old textbooks that do not cover modern methods of environmental protection, and leave students unable to successfully grapple with current environmental problems once they leave school.Heorhii Philipchuk, the Ukrainian minister of environment protection, said his ministry plans to create centers in every region to provide public information about the state of the environment. "Ukrainians live in the dark ages and don't know what they drink or eat, what they breathe, and what dangers come from the enterprises located next to their homes," he said.Without public pressure, critics say Ukraine's lawmakers devote little attention to environmental issues. "The ecological problems of Ukraine are actively ignored in parliament," said Kostrov, from the state inspection agency. "The necessary laws and measures for the preservation and defense of the environment and natural resources are not examined." Others say that even those measures that exist are ambiguous and based on antiquated norms. "For successful development to occur on environmental issues, changes in state legislation are necessary," said Alexander Belyakov, a professor in the environmental department at Kyiv National University. "For instance, the Ukrainian laws on environmental information and environmental protection need precise definitions of violations and punishments."That is even less likely to happen during these dire financial times, said Kruglov, of Chistaya Zhizn. "They have never focused on the environment, and now, during this financial crisis, even less so." The Ukrainian budget for 2009 provides less money for ecological programs than in recent years.A SILENT MEDIA Still, Philipchuk pledged to fight on. "Ukraine desperately needs a better ecological code, and we aim to create it this year, together with the representatives of scientific establishments and public organizations," he said. While the need for better environmental protection has long existed, he said, Ukraine "until recently has lived by Soviet standards." Saying the country has accumulated 30 million tons of waste (of which 5 million are toxic), Philipchuk said he ecological situation is catastrophic.The disproportional concentration of industrial companies within populated areas has decreased the lifespan of Ukrainians by 11 years compared with other Europeans, he said. "For example, in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk, the average lifespan of the residents is only 47 years because of the terrible environment."Despite such disturbing statistics, the media seldom call politicians to task for their lack of action, and then again only when a particularly egregious polluter such as the Donetsk tire repair factory gets caught or an accident occurs. "When Ukrainians are a little more concerned for their health and for active defense of environmental laws, the situation will be different. Currently, though, these issues are rarely in the media," said Zhivaya Planeta's Berezina.Alina Horina, a journalist who covers environmental topics for various publications, concurs. "There are always other things newspapers deem more important. Topics on the environmental are only covered when some great disaster has occurred—no one will write about the environment for its own sake," she said.

Power Vertical Lost in Krasnodar Woods

BOLSHOI UTRISH, Krasnodar Region — Construction in a pristine reserve on the Black Sea has come to an uneasy halt after picketing environmentalists forced police to intervene, but the firm doing the work says it can restart any time, even after federal authorities ordered a criminal investigation.The logging in the Bolshoi Utrish nature reserve came to light last month, sparking protests and a petition drive to halt work on an access road that environmentalists say will open the coast for development of an elite resort. The ensuing dispute has pitted powerful interests behind the project against federal authorities, leaving even the local police unsure of who is calling the shots.The case also highlights the increasingly frequent practice of using complicated ownership structures and contract arrangements to mask who is behind development projects. Commercial pressure to develop the tourism industry often takes precedence over regional and federal environmental protections, not to mention locals' concerns.Earlier this month, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry ordered the Prosecutor General's Office to open a criminal investigation into the logging by Krasnodar-based builder Glavpromstroi, ministry spokesman Nikolai Gudkov said. Last week, Minister Yury Trutnev personally criticized the project and regional authorities for allowing it to proceed, and he ordered the Krasnodar branch of his ministry's watchdog to make sure that the destruction stops.The regional watchdog, in turn, fined Glavpromstroi 2 million rubles ($60,000) on Monday for logging in a federally protected area and destroying endangered plant species. The local environmental prosecutor has also called the construction illegal and opened a case in an Anapa municipal court, but no date has been set for a hearing.The company, however, says it has appealed the administrative penalty and that there is nothing preventing it from proceeding."Only a court decision can stop the work, and so far we haven't received any documents about a court hearing," Yelena Yegorkina, a lawyer for Glavpromstroi, said Wednesday by phone. "We're just a subcontractor, and we were assured that the construction is legal," she said, adding that the logging had been approved by the -regional branch of the Federal Forestry Agency. Alexander Byuller, deputy head of the local forestry department, told The Moscow Times last month that the logging was for a legal, fire-safety road. And just before New Year's, the project received the blessing of Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov, who ordered the forestry agency to make sure the road — already well under way — was completed.
Seeing that the logging, which violates at least three federal conservation laws, was continuing despite their appeals, a group of activists decided to brave the cold and camp out at the site to physically block construction during the 10-day New Year's break. "Otherwise, there would have been nothing to protect once the holidays were over," said Andrei Rudomakha, coordinator of North Caucasus Environmental Watch, the main organizer of the blockade. Rudomakha wrote dozens of letters in December to regional authorities and the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry drawing attention to the clear cutting to no apparent affect. Only 1 kilometer of forest remains before the road reaches the coast.
A group of as many as 20 activists camped out near the construction site, interfering with the work and facing threats from Glavpromstroi workers. The tensions boiled over on Jan. 3, when Glavpromstroi deputy director Yevgeny Yemelin arrived and began threatening activists and reporters. He refused to answer questions regarding the work, while his employees attacked reporters who were taking pictures.The next day, some 30 police officers arrived in nine cars and began checking activists' documents and belongings as part of what they said was an anti-terrorism operation. When the search yielded nothing suspicious, police chief Alexander Belostotsky unexpectedly voiced support for the protesters."It wasn't us, and it wasn't you who allowed the work to go ahead," Belostotsky told the activists. He said Glavpromstroi had failed to present documents proving that the work was legal and assured the protesters that he would prevent it from continuing.But when the activists said they would continue to guard the site despite the assurances, Belostotsky hesitated."Would you go against the government and the president?" he asked.He declined to clarify his remarks.
The multitude of orders, accusations and legal challenges over Bolshoi Utrish has made it easier for government officials to pass around blame for a project that no public figure wants to be associated with anymore.The situation is further complicated by overlapping regional and federal oversight of the land. Yegorkina, the lawyer for Glavpromstroi, said the area was protected both as a "regional reserve" and as "part of the Anapa Federal Resort.""Government agencies cannot agree who is responsible, and we are being blamed in the process," she said.The nontransparent nature of the companies and organizations involved in the work has also clouded the dispute. For example, the project includes separate agreements for the logging work — ordered by the forestry department — and the road, which happens to pass through the cleared space. The road, originally supposed to be 8 meters wide, is now more than three times that in some spots, presumably so that construction materials can be brought in to develop a prime, 120-hectare lot along the coast.
The site in question was rented for 49 years by a Moscow-based organization called Foundation for Regional Noncommercial Projects, "Dar," according to an agreement signed by Dar and the forestry department. A copy of the document was obtained by The Moscow Times. Dar pays just over 14 million rubles ($400,000) per year in rent to the federal and regional budgets, which figures to roughly $300 per hectare per month for the secluded seafront property. In return, Dar has agreed to take on forestry duties, including extinguishing fires and creating "fire-safety infrastructure" that would include helicopter pads, fuel storage and construction of more roads.Environmentalists who inspected the past year of land-use archives found no record of a public auction for the right to rent the plot. And the infrastructure clauses, they say, are merely to hide the real purpose of the work. The forest has little of the undergrowth that tends to fuel forest fires, and "there has never been a serious one in the reserve," said Mikhail Kreindlin, an expert with Greenpeace.Utrish visitors who have seen construction plans say the project would entail a large-scale complex of 18 structures. Among them are a five-story building, a health complex, a house for "servants" and two roads with checkpoints, said Muscovite Andrei Pavlov, who was shown the design by surveyors taking soil samples last month.
The contractor for the road is construction company Harvinter, which has worked with the Office of Presidential Affairs on past projects and received an official thank you from then-President Vladimir Putin in 2006 for organizing a Russia-EU meeting in Sochi in May of that year. The Office of Presidential Affairs "organizes and carries out the logistical support" for the president, government and legislature, according to its web site.Harvinter could not be reached for comment.A receptionist at Dar's Moscow office requested that questions about the project be faxed to the "foundation's management," although she declined to say to whom the request should be addressed. The foundation has not responded to questions sent Tuesday.According to registry records, Dar was founded in 2006 by Levit, which is majority owned by Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of Russia's second-largest gas producer, Novatek. He is also a major shareholder in Novatek, including through Levit.Neither Levit nor Mikhelson could be reached for comment. A spokesman for Mikhelson at Novatek said he could not comment on anything pertaining to Mikhelson's other assets. Using an obscure organization to covertly develop prime land into elite resorts is typical in the region, environmentalists said. "This project is characteristic of others on the coast that are developed secretly as private residences," said Rudomakha, of North Caucasus Environmental Watch. As the only place in Russia with access to the Black Sea and a vast untouched mountain reserve area, the region has seen its share of such projects.Glavpromstroi, the subcontractor, was previously involved in road construction for one such resort built for the Office of Presidential Affairs near Gelendzhik, Rudomakha said. The project was presented as a children's sanatorium, but the secrecy surrounding the project — including fences and barbed wire — suggests the presence of more serious visitors.
Authority in the RegionsThe scandal puts Tkachyov, governor of Krasnodar since 2000, in an awkward position. Despite the rebuke from the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, Tkachyov has not retracted his order demanding that the road through Bolshoi Utrish be completed. Calls to the Krasnodar administration press office went unanswered Thursday.Regional leaders have been quick to heed censure from the federal government, which actively strengthened its control over the regions during Putin's two terms as president. Direct gubernatorial elections were eliminated in 2003 in favor of a system where presidential nominees are approved by local lawmakers. More recently, many new governors have been tapped from outside the regions they are to lead, presumably to keep them more dependent on support from Moscow.But Tkachyov, who was born in Krasnodar and first elected with more than 80 percent of the vote, appears to have the full confidence of Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, as his region will host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Oleg Mitvol, a deputy head of the federal environmental watchdog, said local prosecutors were responsible for failing to act. The investigation ordered by Trutnev, he said, had been "passed off" to the regional prosecutor, who has shown little interest in the case."The regional watchdog is not doing everything in its power to stop the work, but the law enforcement agencies that have proof of criminal activities are not taking action," he said. "If the regional prosecutor wanted to stop the illegal construction, he would do it, and the problem would resolve itself as soon as people start getting arrested."