Forest Code: Main Points

Key provisions of Russia's new Forest Code

1. Raise minimum leasehold period from thirteen months to ten years, and reduce maximum from 99 to 49 years.

2. Ownership still federal, though responsibility for maintenance oversight/management will be transferred down to the regional authorities.

3. Leaseholders also obligated to manage responsibly the forestland they hold or risk having the leaseholds or sales contracts for stands cancelled (e.g., articles 51.3, 61.4).

4. Leaseholds to be generally granted via auctions.

5. Leaseholders now have bigger financial burdens due both to the auction process (creating bidding wars for pieces of forestland) and to the added costs of managing the held land.

6. Forests will categorised as 'protective', 'exploitational' or 'reserve', which puts some previously protected forestland with ecosystem value at risk of development.

7. In an anti-corruption move, use will be established now not by a request for permission, but by an announcement of intention (subsequently monitored by state inspectors).