Analysis of work of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources and Landuse at amendments to the Draft of the Forest Code
Äàòà: 15/04/2006
Òåìà: Indigenous Issues


On 10 April 2006 the session of the Working Group of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources and Landuse was held under the chairmanship of N. Komarova, where the amendments to the Darft of the RF Forest Code were discussed.

The most heated discussion was caused by amendments to article 26 “Forest use accessible to public”. Point 4 of the article contains obscure wording on limitation of the rights of citizens on staying in the forest: “People’s staying in the forest can be limited… point 4… in other cases, when people’s staying in the forest does not coincide the purposes of forest use in accordance with the present Code.” 45 deputies and 15 representatives of the Council of the Federation made an amendment excluding this point. To support this amendment deputy V. Krupchak and representative of the public movement “The land of Russia is people’s wealth” barrister O. Yakovleva spoke. However, the Chairman of the Committee made the decision to develop this point and to concretize the cases of limitations of the people’s rights.
Taking into account the common tendency of “work” of the Committee at the Draft of the Forest Code a conclusion can be made they took only time out, so that afterwards in a hazed form to fix the right of owners and lessees of the forest plots to limit the rights of people on their own. Much harder and clearer the Chairman of the Committee N. Komarova suppressed the attempt to fix the guarantees of the rights of indigenous peoples on forest use in the places of their residence. All the amendments proposed by the deputies of the State Duma, representatives of the Council of the Federation and legislative bodies of RF regions were rejected. Fully ignored was the opinion of the representative of the Committee of the State Duma on Affairs of Nationalities, supporting amendments fixing forest use free of charge for indigenous people in the places of their traditional residence and economical activity. The attitude of the Committee on Affairs of Nationalities was sustained by a representative of the public movement “The land of Russia is people’s wealth”, a representative of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and many members of the Working Group. Nevertheless, the amendment fixing the principle of free use of forest by indigenous people was declined.
Life of most indigenous peoples fully depends on the forest use. The Draft Forest Code does not give possibilities to allot forest plots to communities, families, indigenous organizations. At the same time there were created legislative facilities for almost any natural or juridical person, including foreigners, companies or stateless persons, to own or rent the territories of residence of indigenous peoples.
Neither Draft Forest Code nor any other law oblige the forest lands owners and lessees to secure the rights of indigenous peoples on forest use. And the state authority bodies were released beforehand from the duty to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. The ruefully known Federative Law #122 declared invalid article 4 of the Federative Law “About guarantees of the rights of indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation”, which vested the state authority bodies with the duty to secure the rights of indigenous peoples on traditional lifestyle.
The situation, where indigenous people have the same position as animals and plants of a certain forest plot, was made not occasionally. Actually, they can be “transferred” to owners or lessees, and use the forest only under the conditions offered by the holder. The Draft (article 22) stipulates only written agreement with an owner or a lessee of the land for such activities as haymaking, pasturage, placing bee-hives and apiaries, wild-honey farming, procurement of wood sap, wild fruit, berries, nuts, mushrooms and other forest food products, as well as medicinal herbs and technical materials, other forest materials, growing vegetables, melons, crops, technical plants, etc., procurement of products from the plantations, digging out the trees, bushes and lianas for planting them on lands of other categories, keeping and breeding animals in semi-wild conditions.
No exceptions are envisaged for indigenous peoples. So, indigenous peoples living their traditional lives and having no sources of income will have to pay a tenant or an owner for the right to live on their native lands. The right of indigenous peoples on forest use considering traditional lifestyle formally proclaimed by article 27, actually is cancelled by articles 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, as by the procedure of forest use indigenous peoples will be equal not only to people having other sources of income, but even to commercial structures using the forest for profit.
The concept of the draft deeply contradicts the standards of international law. So, ILO Convention 169 provides not only the possibility to use natural resources free of charge, but to transfer the lands and natural resources to ownership of indigenous communities. Moreover, all the rural population of Russian regions will find themselves in difficult situation. Such VITALLY IMPORTANT ways of forest use as haymaking, pasturage, procurement of wood sap, placing bee-hives and apiaries, wild-honey farming, picking moss will be possible only after written agreement with the owner, tenant or other holder of the land. This ways of forest use do not belong to public accessible ones, which are free of charge. So, with this Code passed, Russian population will lose the possibility to support their living with their own free farming.
The analysis of the Draft of RF Forest Code shows full protection of rights of owners and lessees of certain forest plots, but not of rights of Russian citizens, to whom the forests belong as public wealth.
Edition of articles 18, 22, 26, 27, 28 is a coordinated system on limitation the right on forest use for most people of Russia, including indigenous peoples.





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