Decision of the International Conference

Decision of the International Conference
High Conservation value forests:
From Global Concept to Regional Systems of Forest Management

December 13-14, 2005

Arkhangelsk, Russia

The International Conference “High Conservation value forests: From Global Concept to Regional Systems of Forest Management” was held in Arkhangelsk on December 13-14, 2005. The conference was hosted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the World Bank with participation from the Office of the Plenipotentiary Envoy of the President of the Russian Federation in the Northwest Federal District, Federal Forestry Agency (FFA) of the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) of the Russian Federation, the Russian Office of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the Administration of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Association of Industrialists of Pomoriye. The objective of the conference was to develop environmentally safe policy mechanisms for the use of forest resources at the national and regional levels based on the global concept of high conservation value forests (HCVF).

More than 100 people took part in the conference, including the government officials, representatives of timber industry and audit companies, certification centers, research community, Russian and international environmental NGOs from 11 regions of Russia, as well as from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Georgia.

The conference included three plenary sessions:

·  Global Concept of HCVF

·  Regional experiences in practical implementation of the HCVF concept

·  Issues in practical implementation of the HCVF concept, and

3 round table discussions:

·  Problems in identification of HCVF

·  Economic aspects in identification of HCVF

·  HCVF and legislation, current and needed,

and a concluding session where the participants discussed and approved this Decision and recommendations of round table discussions (see Attachment 1). The conference agenda and list of participants are provided in Attachments 2 and 3.

The conference participants noted the following positive developments:

·  The growing interest to HCVF concept among various social groups, both within the FSC certification process and outside it;

·  Increased environmental and social responsibility of the Russian timber industry, multifold growth of FSC-certified territories in Russia within a short period of time (they constitute more than 7 million hectares at present);

·  Active convergence of positions and improved mutual understanding between different stakeholders (financial institutions, timber industry, forest management, certification authorities, NGOs, research and consulting agencies);

·  Extensive experience in identification and preservation of HCVF at the international, regional and national levels, increasing number of HCVF inventory activities at various levels, availability of a substantial wealth of HCVF-related field data, including maps, success stories in creation of coordinated databases on HCVF at the international and national levels;

·  Use of the HCVF concept in strategic regional planning, including classification of forests into economic and protection groups;

·  Development of HCVF stakeholder groups under the FSC procedures.

However, the following problems stand out at this background:

·  The lack of an officially recognized definition of HCVF, lack of progress with adaptation of the Russian forest legislation to the international tendencies, including the certification process and HCVF as its constituent element;

·  High rate of damage to HCVFs due to the lack of their protection by law;

·  Still insufficient level of environmental and social responsibility of forest and timber industries in Russia;

·  Threat to the legal status of protection categories of Group 1 forests in Russia;

·  Negative impact of the obsolete stereotypes in the use of natural resources and forest management based on the ‘frontier’ utilization of resources and preventing the full integration of HCVF into routine practices;

·  Lack of information on HCVF, absence of reliable sources of information on the status and environmental values of forests;

·  Insufficient mutual understanding on HCVF issues on the part of the MNR, FFA and some other government bodies;

·  No progress in establishing new Protected Areas (PAs) in Russia, in their capacity of one of the most efficient mechanisms in conserving certain types of HCVFs;

·  Absence of regional forest use strategies based on the biodiversity preservation approach, including preservation of HCVF.

To facilitate resolution of the above problems, the participants of the conference decided to appeal to all interested parties with a proposal to take measures towards further integration of HCVF concept in the Russian practices. With this aim in mind the following proposals were made:

Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, Federal Forestry Agency, and Federal Service of Oversight in Natural Resources Use:

1.  Update lists of category groups of the Specially Protected Forest Plots (SPFPs) and protection regimes for forest protection categories in the view of the requirements on HCVF preservation and management;

2.  Update regulations for identification of SPFPs and designation of their protection regimes, in compliance with the certification requirements at the regional level;

3.  Adapt the forest management standards (including the forest regeneration guidelines, intermediate and final cutting standards, etc.) to the various HCVF management regimes;

4.  Preserve division of forests into the protection categories, and prevent relaxation of standards in forest management in various protection categories of Group 1 forests;

5.  Develop incentives for environmentally responsible timber businesses in their efforts to preserve the HCVFs;

6.  Boost the process of establishment of PAs of federal and regional jurisdiction in Russia, including by assigning PA status to the intact forest landscapes. In particular, the Onezhskoye Pomoriye National Park should be created in 2006 in Arkhangelsk Oblast, and Kalevalsky National Park in the Republic of Karelia;

7.  A government program on HCVF inventory and conservation of biodiversity should be developed (potentially financed jointly by the federal and regional budgets, as well as using public-private partnerships), first of all in the regions of the priority forest sector development;

8.  State forest inventory units should be requested to develop and endorse methodologies of HCVF inventory, which would include public hearings and discussions with environmental NGOs. These methodologies should be developed and/or approved in the process of consultations at the national or regional levels, involving various sectors (economic, environmental, and social);

9.  Make publicly available, free of charge (at the marginal cost of copying), the following types of maps that do not contain commercial data and that have been produced with state budget funding:

·  Maps of boundaries of forest management units – forestry districts (leskhoz) and subdistricts (lesnichesvto), quartals;

·  Maps of boundaries of the Group 1 forests, PAs and SPFPs;

·  Maps of boundaries of leased areas.

10.  Actively pursue the dialogue with the other stakeholders in HCVF issues;

11.  At this stage the following practical forms of HCVF management can be recommended for possible implementation:

·  establishment of PAs (e.g., for HCVF 2 – for intact forest landscapes);

·  compliance with protection regimes of specific protection categories of Group 1 forests, adjustment of protection regimes of certain protection categories to comply with requirements biodiversity conservation and special social importance;

·  establishment of special categories of SPFPs, approval of regional SFPF lists and their application in the forest inventory process;

·  development and implementation of the new (regional) timber cutting rules, taking a better care of biodiversity conservation agenda;

·  transition from final cutting to selective cutting in HCVFs, where harvesting is allowed.

In doing so, a more responsive and flexible procedure for the revision of Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) shall be put in place based on the results of designation of SPFPs.

12.  Provide for an accelerated development and implementation of the public information, staff training and development programs in conservation of biodiversity and environmental functions in the use of forest resources, including the process of identification and management of HCVFs, for the relevant authorities at the federal, regional and municipal levels, forestry enterprises and certifying agencies. For this purpose, the Regional Training and Consulting Centers experience in forestry certification should be supported and replicated.

13.  Develop and implement the new intensive forestry and afforestation models and methods as alternatives in the ‘frontier’ development of forest areas;

14.  Propose to regional forestry agencies the implementation of mechanisms for economic assessment of forest resources as a method for economically viable forestry planning;

15.  Develop amendments to “Instructions on Allotment and Surveying of Cutting Areas in the Forests of the Russian Federation”, and “Guidelines to Standing Wood Allotment in the Forests of the Russian Federation” taking into account the biodiversity and biotopes conservation requirements – on the basis of regional experiences in the Komi Republic, Arkhangelsk and Pskov Oblasts;

16.  Recommend establishment of pilot sites (model forests) in the various regions of the Russian Federation, for promotion of the principles of Sustainable Forest Management;

17.  Recommend to the forest inventory units to develop more extensive relations with NGOs.

Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation and Federal Forestry Agency: Review the HCVF issues at a joint meeting of the MNR’s Public Forest Council and the FFA’s Coordination Council with Forest Industry.

Federal Forestry Agency: Draft and submit to the MNR for approval:

-  Proposals on introduction of the HCVF concept into the regulatory documents governing forest use, where clear criteria will be defined to classify a forest area as an HCVF, as well as the delegation of a decision-making authority to the regional level to designate the relevant protection regimes and management regions for such forests;

-  Proposals on introduction into the regulatory documents on forest inventory a provision for the need to identify the HCVFs when implementing the forest inventory and management planning activities;

-  Proposals on amending the forestry regulations in such a way as to allow leaving the wood standing if logging and transportation of some trees is not reasonable from the economic point of view (see Recommendations from the Round Table #3);

-  Proposals on amending the forestry regulations in estimating the boundaries of a cutting area to bring it in compliance with the effective legislation (including the environment protection legislation), to take into account the economic factors and the need to conserve the critical environmental sites (e.g., key habitats of rare and valuable species) when calculating the AAC.

Executive Authorities of the subjects of the Russian Federation: make decisions on reserving forest areas for future PA creation on the basis of properly justified proposals for the required new PAs (including the ones covered by the agreements between NGOs and forest users).

Territorial Authorities of the Federal Forestry Agency: refrain from announcing tenders and auctions for woodcutting at the sites that meeting the HCVF criteria prior to establishing a proper management regime for such areas.

Forest Sector Companies:

1.  Develop the programs for identification and management of HCVFs to provide for transition to such methods of forestry activities which allow the utmost maintenance of forest value. These methods include:

a.  Transition from final to selective cutting;

b.  Conservation of biodiversity elements during woodcutting;

c.  Taking into account landscape features and natural successions of vegetation in the course of economic activities, etc.

2.  Develop programs for reorientation of harvesting to the secondary forests in parallel with the more intensive use of forests and forest restoration techniques in the areas with a long history of forest use as alternatives to the use of remnants of virgin forests.

World Bank-WWF Forest Alliance, FSC International Secretariat, Global Forest Watch:

Support the Russian initiative on establishment and development of the system for informing the users about HCVFs[1] and facilitate its efficient interaction with the international and regional networks.

National FSC Office and the Russian National Council on the Forest Certification: Develop the policy and instructions on implementation of consultations with the stakeholders on identification and conservation of HCVFs.

FSC National Working Group and the Russian National Council on the Forest Certification: develop recommendations on identification and mapping of HCVFs in Russia at the national level and the list of sources (stakeholders owning the information)

FSC Regional Working Groups: specify the recommendations on identification of HCVFs for each region (the region of the group’s activities) including the specific sites or examples in the region.

Auditing companies: discontinue using the HCVF-designated percentage of the FMU area as the certification indicator, at least in those regions, where the actual data and maps on HCVFs is available alongside with the HCVF expert knowledge.

Attachment 1

Round Table Recommendations

Round Table # 1. Problems in Identification of HCVFs

The Round Table participants discussed three issues:

1.  Ways for identification of HCVFs and advisability to use quantitative criteria for identification of HCVFs. Participants agreed that problems with identification and allocation of HCVF are rather complex, therefore the oversimplified criteria are not advisable t use, as they may be even dangerous. Criteria must be flexible, and assignment of a HCVF status to a site should be made on biological, ecological and landscape value basis, with mandatory use of experts’ knowledge. On a major scale (at the international and subnational levels) quantitative indicators might be useful (HCVFs should comprise at least 15-20% of the territory), but they do not make sense at the level of a forest management unit. It is especially true in the case with major forest landscapes which cannot be fully conserved in the HCVF concept terms. Their preservation requires government sponsored programs and measures. The representation principle is also of no use for HCVF concept implementation – in order to allow the network of HCVF cover all typical ecosystems and landscapes. The resulting understanding of HCVFs should be produced through the public agreement mechanisms, with weighted evaluation of their environmental, economic and social values.

2.  Allocation of socially important HCVFs (Categories 5 and 6). It is possible to conserve the forests which play an important public role, following the HCVF concept and complying with the FSC Guidelines and Criteria. Conservation of socially significant forests is very important, but the degree of importance varies from one place to another. Frequently the people are not aware of their rights and cannot exercise them. The process for allocation and preservation of socially significant HCVFs should be stirred up, and more adequate instruments for reflection of social processes in the implementation of HCVF concept need to be developed to include the forest of historical and esthetic value.