During the past week, prosecutors' offices immediately reported 3 cases related to illegal timber harvesting, the total damage to the state from which exceeded 2.8 million hryvnias.
More detailed information about them was made public by the press services of the Rivne, Kyiv and Chernihiv regional prosecutor's offices.
1. Prosecutors of the Specialized Environmental Prosecutor's Office of the Kyiv Regional Prosecutor's Office informed the forest foreman of the Makariv forestry branch of the "Makariv Forestry" branch of the SE "Forests of Ukraine" about the suspicion of official negligence. The investigators established that the forest rangers improperly performed their official duties for forest protection.
They allowed illegal felling of wood on the territory assigned to them in the Buchan district. Therefore, unidentified persons took advantage of the opportunity and cut down 161 trees. This caused losses in the amount of almost UAH 700,000.
The suspects are charged under Part 2 of Art. 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine "Official negligence that caused serious consequences." The sanction of the article provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of up to 5 years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or to engage in certain activities for a term of up to 3 years and with a fine of 250 to 750 of the tax-free minimum income of citizens or without it.
2. According to the same article, the forest master of one of the forestry companies of the Nizhyn district will be tried. He did not control the correctness of forest use on the plot assigned to him in the "Lysarivshchyna" tract, did not check compliance by loggers with the rules of felling the forest during sanitary felling. Thus, the employee allowed the illegal felling of trees of various species, which he did not detect and record in time.
As a result, 21 trees were destroyed without a special permit (logging ticket) on the territory of the object of the nature reserve fund – botanical reserve of local importance "Tract "Lysarivshchyna".
By his inaction, the official caused damage to the state in the amount of more than UAH 516,000.
3. Prosecutors of the Sarnen District Prosecutor's Office reported the suspicion to the head of the Specialized Agricultural Service Cooperative. In 2020, he deliberately entered false information in the logging ticket. Having data on the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of each forest plot , in the document, instead of the authorized sanitary felling of individual trees, the official illegally indicated "pure forest felling".
Later, on the basis of this forged document, workers hired by the head of the cooperative cut down 487 trees of various species and diameters.
With this illegal logging, the official caused more than UAH 1.6 million in losses to the state.
Now he is charged under two articles of the Criminal Code: illegal felling of trees, as well as official forgery of official documents, which caused serious consequences (Part 4 of Article 246, Part 2 of Article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
Now the head of the cooperative risks spending 5 to 7 years behind bars.
The other day, EcoPolitic reported that members of the Kyiv ecological and cultural center accused officials of the Ministry of Veterans' Affairs of Ukraine in an attempt to destroy 270 hectares of the Markhaliv Forest in order to further sell the wood and obtain a profit of UAH 80 million.
We also reported that the leader and three members of an organized criminal group, who held positions in the state-owned enterprise "Kutske Forestry" and engaged in illegal logging since 2018, caused damage to the environment of almost UAH 250 million. Now they will appear before the court
