The State Duma passed the new Forestry Code in the second reading on Wednesday.The new version of the code is a founding act in the field of forestry. It keeps all forests in Russia in federal ownership
The Duma had approved the code’s concept a year and a half ago
One of the key provisions in the code grants the right to give parts of forests to state and municipal research and educational institutions for indefinite use. A part of a forest in state or municipal ownership may also be leased for up to 49 years.

The code introduces a new classification of forests: protective, operational, and reserve. Forests will be managed by regional administrations. Federal authorities will retain a limited number of management, controlling and supervisory functions.
It says that “citizens may stay in forests and procure wild berries, nuts, mushrooms, edible and non-wood resources freely and free of charge.”
The document also introduces new uses for forests. In addition to traditional seven uses, including logging, gathering of nonwood resources, and hunting, it adds agricultural operations, creation and operation of forest plantations, construction and operation of water reservoirs and other artificial water facilities, construction, reconstruction and operation of power lines, communication lines, roads, pipelines and other linear facilities, wood processing.
The code bans monopoly and unfair competition in the use of forests.
Now entrepreneurs will not only make a profit from selling wood but will also have to plant new trees to restore forests, State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov said.
 “We must stop the plunder of forests,” he added.
Under the code, forest users will have to pay for the felling of trees and for lease.
Earlier, lumbermen, forestry industry officials, scientists and environmentalists expressed concern that the draft Forestry Code might allow the privatisation of forests.
 “From the legal point of view, the Forestry Code, which is slated for the second reading in the State Duma, does not say a word about private property, but land basically becomes a subject of turnover instead of forests. In other words, forest turnover will be regulated not by the Forestry Code but by the Land Code, which allows for the purchase/sale of land,” the president of the Russian Society of Foresters, an academician of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Anatoly Pisarenko said.
 “This lifts restrictions on the transfer of land under forests into the category of land for development,” the director of the World Wildlife Fund’s environment protection policy, Yevgeny Shvarts said.
 “Under the new draft, an entrepreneur will make a wood logging plan himself and will only submit a declaration to the state, but it practically impossible to verify it now that forest management functions is divided between federal and regional authorities,” Academician of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Nikolai Moiseyev said.
The head of the Committee on the Forestry Industry of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Alexander Belyakov, called for creating special economic zones not by the territorial but by the industry principle.
 “I suggest proclaiming deep wood processing a special economic zone and relieve it taxes for five years,” he said.
The experts believe that the code should be returned to the first reading and proposed to delay the enactment of the code till January 1, 2008.