According to the results of three quarters of 2023, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” supplied 8.68 million cubic meters of timber to buyers, which is 13.5% more than in the same period last year, said Yuriy Bolokhovets, acting CEO of the company.
“Timber sales are transparent, the rules of the game in the market are clear and predictable, as evidenced by the growth in the percentage of sales contracts fulfillment to almost 90%. Thus, the market is now balanced. Supply and demand are balanced,” he wrote on Facebook.
According to Bolokhovets, different price trends are observed for different types and species of wood. However, the average price of an impersonal cube of timber during the second and third quarters of 2023 decreased from UAH 1810 to UAH 1675.
The head of the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” noted that not all market participants accept free competition and market pricing. “Some large players are used to solving the issue of resource supply behind the scenes and receiving timber under direct contracts and artificially low prices. Today, they are forced to compete with other processors and buy the resource at the price set by the market,” he stated and added that there will be no return to the practice of manual market regulation.
As reported, Ukraine launched a forestry reform in 2016. As part of it, the sale of raw wood at electronic auctions has already been introduced. Since 2021, an interactive map of wood processing facilities has been operating in a test mode in a number of regions.
The industry has implemented the Forest in a Smartphone project, which contains a list of logging tickets for timber harvesting and allows you to check the legality of logging on the agency’s online map.
On June 1, 2023, Ukraine launched a pilot for the electronic issuance of logging tickets and certificates of origin of timber.
In addition, the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” has launched a pilot project to procure timber harvesting services through the Prozorro electronic platform.
Currently, the company has accumulated more than 130 thousand cubic meters of firewood for the 2023/2024 heating season.
Almost 55 thousand hectares of forests may be flooded with water in the Kherson region as a result of the explosion of the Kakhovka hydropower plant by Russian troops, of which 47 thousand hectares are occupied territories, said the director of the state enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” Yuri Bolokhovets.
“It is quite difficult to assess the damage caused to forestry now, because we do not have access to the occupied territories. However, it is possible to predict the situation,” he wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
Bolokhovets noted that the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region is planted with pine forests. The fertile layer of forests and young plantings could have already been literally swept away by the flow of water.
Pine grows well where it is dry, the expert explains. Stagnant water in waterlogged places provokes the development of root rot and changes the acidity of the soil. It can kill trees if the water stagnates for up to 20 days, as it is predicted. Trees under 10 years of age are particularly endangered, the report says.
Of particular concern to the head of the state enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” are wild animals, which found themselves in flooded areas. “If there is still hope for the preservation of plants in the forest, the animals are actually doomed. Perhaps some may be able to cling to an island of land, but the vast majority will simply be carried by the current into the open sea. These are deer, roe deer, wild boar. Lizards, snakes, hares, hedgehogs have no chance”, Bolokhovets notes.
He also pointed out that the threat of flooding is close to Kynburne Spit, most of which is below sea level. According to him, the isthmus at the end of the bay outside the Dnieper delta is likely to be almost completely flooded, and this could happen in 50 hours after the breach of the dam.
“The regional landscape park “Kinburn Spit”, which has been suffering from fires as a result of shelling for more than a year, may now be partially under water,” said Bolokhovets.
It is noted that due to the destruction of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station into the Dnieper about 150 tons of machine grease, the precipitation of which on plants leads to irreversible consequences in the process of photosynthesis.
“Such actions of a terrorist country are ecocide, for which they will have to answer”, – summarized the head of the state enterprise “Forests of Ukraine”.
As of January 2019 4.08 million ha of forests has been certified in Ukraine, and most of the forests are kept by the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine, the press service of the authority has reported, referring to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Ukraine. According to the authority, the certification confirms that the forestry system in the certified forests meets international requirements for management and use of forests in line with sustainable development principles.
“The regions of Ukraine with forests have a high percentage of international certification. Unfortunately, certification did not occur in the southern and eastern regions due to the lack of funding,” Deputy Head of the State Forest Resources Agency Volodymyr Bondar said, adding that the authority intends to continue certification this year.
According to the State Forest Resources Agency, at the end of 2018, the Accreditation Services International (ASI) inspected the activities of audit companies for forest certification and did not reveal any violations.
The total area of forest areas of Ukraine is almost 10.4 million hectares. The forest cover of Ukraine is 15.9%. The State Forest Resources Agency manages 7.6 million hectares of forests (73% of the forest fund of Ukraine).
The State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine has regenerated 43,700 ha of forests in 2018 with 40,000 ha of clear logging in 2017, the agency has reported on its website.
According to the agency, 1,900 ha of trees planted in 2018 are new forests.
“The volume of forest renewal over the past five years amounted to 251,000 hectares, which is 11% more than the area of clear logging (227,000 hectares),” the State Forest Resources Agency said.
At the same time, the agency said that there is a tendency that the area of degraded plants is expanding, therefore, in the future, an increase in the timber harvesting volume is possible. At the same time, the State Agency is initiating a transition from clear logging to gradual and selective logging systems.
“In recent years, in the Carpathian region, gradual and selective logging systems were used more widely, reaching about 60% of the area,” the agency said.
It indicates that the data are given for forests at the disposal of the State Forest Resources Agency – 7.6 million hectares, or 73% of the Forest Fund of Ukraine.
Data on forests in the temporarily occupied territories of the country is not available.
