A significant part of illegal logging is associated with violations and corruption in the forestry sector, and the imperfection of Ukrainian legislation and the inhibition of tougher legislative initiatives to punish this type of crime help criminals avoid responsibility.
The Telegraph published such materials of its own analysis after communicating with experts.
The journalists talked to Dmytro Karabchuk, a scientist and founder of the NGO Forest Initiatives and Society (FIS), and Mykhailo Bohomaz, an ecologist and head of the forestry department of the Ukrainian office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Ukraine). The experts pointed out the most pressing issues related to the protection of Ukrainian forests from deforestation.
Problem No. 1 – Forests suffer the most damage from those who are supposed to protect them
Almost every week, EcoPolitics reports on the exposure of illegal logging worth millions of hryvnias. The number of smaller violations is many times higher. Readers can easily verify this by looking at our weekly digests.
Experts say that many of these offenses are still related to the activities of officials of former forestry enterprises, and less often to the current branches of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” or even departments of the State Forestry Agency. They also note that changing the status of forestry enterprises that have now become branches of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” and changing their management does not always guarantee that abuses by officials will stop. According to experts, the reason is that there is a lack of new professional managers. Therefore, people with dubious backgrounds who have previously managed other forestry enterprises are often appointed as heads of branches.
As an example, experts cited Yuriy Soyma, former head of Velyky Bychkiv Forestry and Hunting Enterprise. According to the Telegraph, he is known as the Transcarpathian “forest prince” and is involved in a number of corruption scandals, primarily related to illegal logging. According to Delo.ua, the State Bureau of Investigation is very interested in Soyma's activities. He is suspected of committing crimes under several articles, including large-scale embezzlement by a group of people, forgery, and abuse of office.
His son, Yurii Soima Jr. is currently the head of the Kutske Forestry branch. The other day, EcoPolitics wrote about illegal logging worth UAH 83 million that was recorded by environmental inspectors on the territory of this forestry.
Problem No. 2 – Only a small part of detected illegal logging is officially recorded
According to the official data provided in the public report of the State Agency of Forest Resources for 2023, only about 28.5 thousand cubic meters of trees were documented as being illegally cut in the agency's forests.
A study by the NGO LIIS, which also relies on official data but includes all forests in Ukraine, indicates a slightly higher figure – 30.3 thousand cubic meters.
According to experts, the actual illegal harvesting amounts to millions of cubic meters of wood. In monetary terms, this can amount to billions of hryvnias in losses to the state budget.
Dmytro Karabchuk, head of the NGO LIIS, estimated illegal logging in the pre-war years in the Carpathian forests alone at up to 5 million cubic meters. WWF expert Mykhailo Bohomaz also speaks of similar volumes.
In 2023, WWF-Ukraine conducted a large-scale study of the forest and wood biomass market in Ukraine for 2007-2021. It showed that the annual volume of woody biomass actually used for energy needs is many times (millions of cubic meters) higher than the amount of officially harvested biomass.
"Conventionally speaking, millions of cubic meters of firewood were harvested illegally every year," the journalists claim.
Photo: ifr.gp.gov.ua.
Problem No. 3 – Impunity for violators and imperfect legislation
Experts say that the very fact of the illegal origin of wood is sometimes impossible to document and then prove in court. Draft law No. 9665, dubbed the "law on firewood", was supposed to simplify the process of proving by adding another article, which provides for punishment "for the transportation, storage, sale of trees, shrubs or wood, the legality of whose origin is not confirmed" .
Mykhailo Bogomaz believes that the adoption of this law would make it much easier for law enforcement officers to track violators at all subsequent stages after felling: transportation, storage, and sale.
But after an active campaign against draft law No. 9665 in the public sphere and on social networks, information appeared that President Volodymyr Zelenskyi will not sign it.
"This law is actually very important for the protection of the forest. But it seems that someone launched a powerful media campaign to discredit it, the purpose of which was to show that in Ukraine they will hardly be shot for storing firewood. That they will come and punish grandmothers who have they keep a couple of cubic meters of firewood in the yard. This is, of course, complete nonsense, aimed at preventing the president from signing this law. Unfortunately, this PR campaign worked and now I very much doubt that this president will will sign the law. It turns out that the beneficiaries of illegal logging have won, and the forest itself and society have lost," says Dmytro Karabchuk.
According to the head of the NGO “LIIS”, the Ukrainian state law enforcement and environmental systems, unfortunately, have neither a reasonable methodology for investigating and proving crimes against the forest, nor the proper means and resources for this, nor a legal basis for punishing the perpetrators.
The publication notes that when law enforcement officers do catch an alleged “black logger,” they charge him alone with minor crimes, not the customers and organizers. Although the entire chain of crime usually includes officials who “cover up” such schemes, as well as the loggers themselves, those who export illegally cut timber, and those whose processing plant it eventually ends up at. Dmytro Karabchuk says that there are many cases when law enforcement officers themselves are either directly involved in such schemes or simply turn a blind eye to illegal logging.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that on October 10, the Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 9665, which provides for stricter liability for forest destruction, illegal logging, and prevents illegal timber trafficking. Recently, EcoPolitics published a digest of the most significant environmental offenses for November 9-15, including several large-scale illegal logging.
