This is a reaction to the procedure for amendments of two regulations of the Forest Act – The Regulation on assigning forestry activities – state and municipal forests, and the Regulation on control and protection of forest areas. Their improvement should restrict the violations on Regulation 995 of the European Union for counteracting illegal wood industry, since according to a report of the EC from January 18 it is not applied effectively in most of the countries of the Union.
“Raising the transparency in assigning contracts in the wood industry is of key importance for restricting to the minimum the abuse and corruption in the forest sector. Especially weak is the protection of the public interest and free competition in assigning and implementation of long-term contracts in the wood industry without a tender, as well as of contracts for sale of timber per tree, in which the cut tree timber becomes directly property of the logging firms” – Eng. Alexander Dunchev says, expert for the programme “Forests” of the WWF.
“Along with our other suggestions, we think that it is necessary forest staff issuing transport tickets to be responsible for the legality of the transported from the forest timber, in order to be clear who allows illegally cut trees to be sold – says Eng. Neli Doncheva, head of the programme “Forests” of the WWF – At the moment, the responsibility for allowing only legally cut wood on Bulgarian market is diffused. “I remind that Bulgaria has signed the EU Timber Regulation from 2013 and has taken the engagement to guarantee in practice the legality of this market sector”.
The most important amendments and additions, which the experts of the organization call for, are:
- mandatory issuance in electronic form of all documents necessary for the transport and processing of timber through a common electronic system;
- setting up of temporal restrictions for transport tickets for short distances;
- the official who is issuing ticket for transport of timber from a temporary storage should ensure and bear responsibility that the activity is legal;
- guaranteeing the publicity of the control activity of the separate forestries;
- precise marking of the trees selected for cutting, with the requirement of clear marking the numbers of the surrounding forest area.
“Concealing of real volumes of logged timber, and the lack of clear visibility regulations and of availability of a number of the marking on trees for cutting are the two most popular ways for theft in the forest presently. For example, by means of a fake marking, resembling in shape or size the control forest marking, a lot more trees are marked for cutting and there is not an existing mechanism, through which this violation can be controlled” – Eng. Alexander Dunchev warns.
WWF suggests measures for better application of European regulation on logging and sale of timber
