Every ruble invested into satellite monitoring of forest use in Arkhangelsk, brought less than 5 kopeeks in fines and forfeit in 2005. The total sum of penalty charges in 2005 for all kinds of forestry law violations in Arkhangelsk was 577,000 rubles (USD 20,458). At the same time, the total sum of expenses necessary to conduct the monitoring of forestry activities is 11,7 million rubbles (USD 414,829), or 20 times more than received in fines. It should be noted that not all of the violations in Arkhangelsk forest were detected through the satellite monitoring system. Many of the violations were detected thanks to the active work of inspectors of the Federal Service on Nature Use Supervision and leskhozes’ staff. Such low effectiveness of the satellite monitoring can be explained with two reasons.
First of all, the responsibility to identify violations in the forest lies on the agency that does not have all the rights to influence violations. Satellite monitoring is done by Rosleskhoz, while all the rights necessary to use it effectively belong to the Federal Service on Nature Use Supervision. Such an allocation of responsibilities and rights at times lead to situations when even proved violations are not taken to court and the violators never find out they’ve been caught.
The second reason is that detection of violations is not the most effective and reasonable way to use satellite monitoring system. Because of its technical limitations, such a system is suited best to monitor forest use in a specific area that is as large as leskhozes, leased areas, et.c. For a specific logging site, satellite monitoring can only be effective in coordination with ground forest protection, able to collect proof and clarify the information collected through the satellite images. However, ground forest protection in Arkhangelsk (as in the whole of Russia) was disbanded by a federal law in 2004.