The residents of the Tula Region contacted me and asked for our help! Yet again, officials, driven by their own selfish interests, are destroying wild nature. They unabashedly invade the last ecological sanctuaries, tear them apart, and seemingly cannot stop.
Mass deforestation has begun in several districts of the Tula Region! The main instigator is again the Ministry of Natural Resources, which issued permits for cutting down valuable tree species! Additionally, the logging is initiated on protected lands.
We contacted the Russian Federal Investigative Committee, where we received a response that the issue is already being addressed. The information also reached the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, and as far as I know, the case is under his personal supervision.
Do you understand what's happening? The destruction of nature is gaining momentum during a difficult time for the country! Officials are brazenly trying to legalize anything, just to fill their pockets with money.
We are already tired of fighting them, just since the beginning of summer they tried to legalize the killing of sleeping bears in dens, killing animals for 'harming' agriculture and hunting grounds, and now they are trying to permit the killing of animals listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation and legalize clear-cutting of protective forests in mountain sanctuaries of wild nature.
At the same time, smaller officials, usually in the regions, tear nature apart amidst the general uproar! For instance, in the Kostroma Region, the authorities from the regional center wanted to dump all city waste into a small village, and now in the Tula Region, logging of protected forests is initiated 'for sanitary purposes'. Similar misfortunes occur in all corners of the country, all isolated and unconnected from each other.
Regarding the situation in the Tula Region, the investigative committee is already working on it, trying to address the problem!
The residents of the region who contacted me also individually submitted applications to various authorities: from the prosecutor’s office to the President's reception, to somehow draw attention to the issue.
The situation is as follows: a local entrepreneur (who registered as IP Kurochkin) purchased a permit from the regional Ministry of Natural Resources for 'sanitary cutting' of trees. But in reality, they brought in machinery and started cutting down healthy trees, essentially destroying the protected forest.
Logging is happening in the forest near Kosaya Gora and Skuratovo. According to local residents, the trees were not infested with bark beetles; there were no damages or diseases. I also examined the submitted photos and confirmed that the trees are healthy.
But this didn't stop the businessmen, they are ready to destroy everything in their pursuit of profit.
The forests in the Tula Region are already scarce, with just steppes and fields! Therefore, the few forests remaining are typically wildlife sanctuaries for local flora and fauna. For example, the forest currently being destroyed is a refuge for numerous plants and tree species listed in the Red Book! Also, there's an eagle-owl living here, which has nowhere else to hide from humans: it's listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation and is on the brink of extinction. And now its home is being cut down to the root!
The Ministry of Natural Resources initiated the destruction of more than 21 hectares of forest. It is already known even from the regional prosecutor’s office that many of the felled trees were not marked as sick or dry!
I want to quote local residents, authors of the community 'Vukodrevnitsa', for understanding the issue:
“I raised the issue that sanitary logging is conducted based on the order of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources 499, in points 12 and 14, which clearly states that during sanitary logging, it is forbidden to drive through rivers and streams; remove the fertile soil layer; damage shrubs and other plants that are not designated for sanitary logging... And all these rules were violated... To all these questions there is only one answer... Nothing serious...
In the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Tula Region, a day before this conversation, we were generally told that our great-grandchildren will be happy with this forest...
Again, I am a forest man and have seen many things in this forest... And I also raised this issue with them... Forest pathology expertise was conducted last year in a week... 21.3 hectares of forest were earmarked for felling, namely 966 trees... The ability to inspect such a number of trees in a week raises many questions, but the issue was that during the forest pathology expertise they should have identified the presence of species listed in the Red Book of the Tula Region and the Red Book of the Russian Federation in this forest, including the golden eagle, peregrine falcon, and eagle-owl...
No one gave me an answer to this question either... Interestingly... There's one continuous massif both on Yasnaya Polyana and with us, and on Lominstevo... The forest in Yasnaya Polyana is a reserve, the forest in Lominstevo is a reserve... Our part of the forest is between these two sections... In fact, it's the same forest... BUT ours for some reason is not a reserve...
I can describe how much nonsense representatives of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Tula Region told us for a long time... BUT I think this is enough to give a complete picture... Now, let's apply logic... The first trees on Earth appeared 380 million years ago. The first forestry in Russia appeared in 1826. That is, the first forestry in Russia is not even two hundred years old yet... Somehow these trees managed without forestry for 380 million years and were able not only to survive but also to populate the entire planet...? Yet, somehow, these inept foresters believe that without their careful logging, the forest will die...”
That's the problem! Another one, and how many more such problems are there across the country. If forest destruction in the Tula Region is not immediately and severely stopped, impunity will spread and become a real disease in our society.
The residents of the Tula Region are asking for our help! Let’s spread this material, tell people what is happening.
I instructed our team to take control of the situation, keep monitoring, stay in contact with government agencies, and await the results of the investigation by the Russian Federal Investigative Committee.
© PAVEL PASHKOV
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