Forest Policy, Politics and Forest Programmes in Russia

Although Russia commands huge forest resources having not only great national but also global importance, forest policy in the modern sense is a relatively new concept in the country. It emerged into professional use during the transition period of economy in the 1990s.

Russia's forest policy presently can be understood as a composition of forest legislation, several target programmes and strategy documents and some aspects of international agreements. However, the documents do not yet represent any logical and comprehensive contents for forest policy.

The main objective of this study is to increase understanding about the rationale and contents of ongoing processes to formulate more solid Russian forest policy to respond the economic, social and environmental problems forestry is facing.

The study investigates the development of forest policy framework, including analysis of goals and means, forest legislation, national and regional forest programs and institutional changes, taking into account the involvement of politics - the strong economic and political interests.

Four entities are regarded here to be most relevant: 1) the argumentation concerning forest ownership including the mixed management approaches, 2) financing of forestry and silviculture, 3) the division of governance between federal and regional levels and 4) the institutional-organisational structure of forest sector (largely making the involvement of the public sector operational).

Project leader: Prof. Olli Saastamoinen, University of Joensuu, P.O.Box 111, 8010 Joensuu, Finland, tel. +358-(0)13-251 3626, olli.saastamoinen(at)joensuu.fi

Project description