There is outrage in RuNet and the media over the cutting down of Russian forests and sending them to China. Residents of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Irkutsk region submit petitions to the authorities, which are signed by thousands of people, asking them to stop the “seizure” of the Siberian taiga. One of their demands is to ban the logging and export of round timber from Russia to China for ten years, Carnegie writes.
Carnegie (USA): The Great Deforestation of China. What really threatens the Siberian forest
One of the main Russian fears of the Chinese is that they want to cut down all of our Siberian forest. Almost everyone has written about it in the past few months, from activist bloggers to major tabloids. On the Internet, this topic has been discussed in a raised voice for several years now; residents of the Irkutsk region and Krasnoyarsk Territory are writing thousands of petitions against the “capture” of the Siberian taiga by the Chinese.
For example, they demand a moratorium on the cutting down and export of round timber from Russia to China for ten years. Local activists claim that after the barbaric deforestation, no new forest plantings are taking place, chips and branches remain in the developed areas, which causes fires, and the Russian local authorities are either unwilling or completely unable to resist the “yellow threat” to the forests of Siberia.
The public is also outraged by the fact that Siberian timber is sold to China in almost unprocessed form for pennies, while Chinese business, in fact, wins twice by then selling wood products back to Russia.
Indeed, China is one of the largest suppliers of furniture on the world market, and as the standard of living rises there, the domestic market for wood products is also actively expanding. As a result, China gradually became the world leader in imports of unprocessed wood: in 2017, its volume amounted to $23.4 billion, 16.6% of world imports. In second place is the United States with imports of $21.1 billion, followed by Japan ($10.3 billion). The range of wood suppliers to China is constantly expanding, but not all of them are sounding the alarm.
Russian supplies
According to Chinese statistics, Russia is the leader in timber supplies to China. Now it accounts for 30% of Chinese imports of wood and lumber, followed by New Zealand with a share of 13.8%, followed by Canada and the USA (9.8% each). Traditionally, mainly just round timber is imported from New Zealand, and processed products (cellulose, paper, wood pulp) from North America. But the structure of timber exports from Russia to China has changed in an interesting way over the past 10 years, including due to restrictions on the export of round timber, which activists advocate so much for.
In 2007 Russian government introduced new tariffs on the export of unprocessed wood from Russia: they increased from 6.5% to 20%, and a year later they increased again - to 25%. In some cases, duties on unprocessed timber are now as high as 80%. Increase in customs duties, according to plan Russian authorities, was supposed to push the flow of investment (primarily foreign) into the domestic woodworking industry. Also, legislators, of course, thought about replenishing the budget: duties on the product group “raw timber”, depending on the type of wood, now in most cases amount to 15 euros per cubic meter (but can reach up to 100 euros per cubic meter).
The increase in tariffs affected trade with China even then, although 10 years ago the Chinese threat to Russian timber was not considered the worst (they were more worried about supplies to Scandinavian countries). Due to the new rules, the volume of Russian timber exports to China, after a decade of growth, began to fall for the first time in 2007: from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion in 2009. Despite the decline in supplies from Russia, the total volume of Chinese wood imports continued to increase - Russian timber was quickly replaced by supplies from New Zealand.
Despite the new duties, the interest of Chinese business in Russian wood has not disappeared. There is a lot of forest in Russia, and it’s not far to get it. Among Russian regions, the leaders in timber supplies to China are precisely Siberia and Far East(in 2016 their share in total volume logging in the Russian Federation - 41%). But after the introduction of draconian tariffs on round timber, Russian exports began to be dominated by timber products that had undergone minimal processing (now their share is 62%). In 2017, round timber accounted for only 35% of Russian wood supplies to China.
This shift in the structure of Russian timber exports is not accidental. Duties for the export of sawn wood from Russia are significantly lower - 10% (from 5 euros per cubic meter). Chinese business took advantage of this. Instead of investing in deep processing of timber from their northern neighbor, as the authorities in the Russian Federation intended, Chinese entrepreneurs did something simpler: they began to slowly move to Russia and open their own sawmills.
If in 2008 there were 152 forestry companies with Chinese participation registered in Russia, now there are at least 564 of them. Most often, they are not directly involved in deforestation: they bring their own equipment and specialists, and hire Russians for lower positions. As a result, the export of wood from Russia to China continues to gain momentum, but it does not go beyond the primary processing of timber.
Chinese investor and Russian ecologist
High-ranking officials in China and Russia, however, have not given up hope of jointly developing the wood processing industry at a more sophisticated level. Negotiations on projects for deep forest processing have been ongoing for almost 15 years, but do not always lead to real results. One of the most notable joint projects of the PRC and the Russian Federation in the forest industry is the Asinovsky Timber Industrial Park in Tomsk region, created back in 2004. Since 2008, this project has been carried out by the RosKitInvest corporation, which belongs to the Yantai Technical and Economic Development Zone and the Chinese company AVIC Forestry.
In 2016, the Tomsk authorities announced that they had attracted a “new” investor from China to this project - the United Investment Corporation of Hubei Province, which also turned out to be the holder of a controlling stake in AVIC Forestry. The volume of investments in the Asinovsky LPK project, as stated on the park’s website (which, by the way, has not yet been translated into Chinese), exceeds 30 billion rubles, and the volume of processed wood will in the future reach 4.5 million cubic meters. Some LPK capacities have already been launched, and the project will be fully operational by 2022.
Other Russian-Chinese projects in the timber industry are still at the stage of negotiations or preparation for construction: this is a timber chemical complex in the Yenisei region worth $2 billion, the Amur pulp mill (the promised investment volume is $1 billion), as well as a joint timber exchange of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. Another project in the Tomsk region, the Beloyarsk timber processing complex, has been discussed since 2015. Chinese investors from the Xinjiang Zhongtai Group and AVIC Forestry (the same one that finances the Asinovsky LPK) talked about the desire to quickly begin construction of the LPK and were going to invest up to 50 billion rubles there, but since 2015 there has been no news about the project.
Context
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Haqqin.az 08/21/2018But the future of the almost completed Amazar timber industry complex, which is being built in the Trans-Baikal Territory with 100% participation of Chinese investors, is now in question due to environmental problems. The project began back in 2005 with government support Chita region, and in December 2017 they were even included in the priority program for the development of border areas Trans-Baikal Territory.
But at the final stage of construction, it turned out that the forestry complex poses a serious threat to the ecology of the region: required quantity There is simply no timber for processing in the region (the project's logging volumes are planned to reach 2 million cubic meters per year), and the dam on the Amazar River, built to ensure the operation of the complex, blocks the migration routes of fish and disrupts the life of the reservoir. Environmentalists began to protest back in 2013, and five years later, largely due to the uproar, Chinese investors finally pulled out of the project, having invested $360 million in it.
Chinese Certificate in Forestry
Defenders of Siberian forests explain the interest of Chinese business by the fact that in China itself, deforestation is prohibited by law due to environmental problems. They say that the Chinese have brought their forests to the point of complete depletion and are now setting about the riches of Russia. However, this is not entirely true.
Indeed, extensive and large-scale industrialization in China over the past 30-40 years has brought many regions to the brink of environmental disaster, and the revival of nature literally from the ashes and the creation of a “green civilization” is a priority for Beijing’s socio-economic policy in recent years. But there is no complete ban on deforestation in China: the authorities impose serious restrictions on logging (even in the area of artificial forest plantations), but if you have a license, you can still do it.
Restrictions vary depending on the region, and are especially strict for natural forests. In some places (for example, around the largest metropolitan areas - Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, as well as in protected areas of Tibet) deforestation natural forest almost completely prohibited. Most forests can be cut down in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Okrug. It is one of the least economically developed regions of China and has been little affected by industrialization.
Until 2020, the Chinese authorities allow the harvesting of up to 5.08 billion cubic meters of forest throughout the country, and only artificial forest plantations (2.8 billion cubic meters) are subject to commercial felling. That is, now the Chinese authorities allow the cutting down of approximately 1 billion cubic meters of their own forests per year, which is three times more than the peak volumes of exports from Russia. But by 2020, Beijing plans to completely stop the deforestation of natural forests and reduce commercial logging by 20%, which could also affect the scale of wood exports from Russia.
What's wrong with Russian regulation
In 2007, Russia not only increased duties on the export of round timber, but also seriously revised its forestry legislation. Responsibility for the safety of Russian forests has passed from federal to regional authorities. As a result, local officials are ready to sign even the most dubious agreement ecological point view of a project (such as the Amazar Timber Processing Complex), just to meet the KPI for attracting Chinese investment to their region.
The new Forest Code virtually eliminated the system of state forest protection, and the number of professional foresters decreased significantly. Because of this, the system of control over forest use has weakened: chips and sawdust, which increase the risk of fires, have ceased to be removed from felling areas ( the peak came in the summer of 2010, echoes were felt even in Moscow).
In addition, the scale of illegal deforestation is growing. Due to funding cuts, foresters are increasingly turning a blind eye to black loggers, whose services are often used by Chinese companies, causing particular anger among Russians. It is almost impossible to track such illegal logging (which violates forest management rules, leading to deforestation and fires) - this often happens in hard-to-reach regions.
Corruption at customs is also added here. Very often, illegally felled forest (even if it is a tree from the Red Book) can be whitewashed on the Russian border without any problems: documents can even be purchased for the export of relict Siberian cedar. But for now, public outrage is directed not so much at officials, but at the heads of Chinese entrepreneurs who are simply taking advantage of the opportunities of the business climate in which they exist.
Environmentalists say that almost the main problem for Russia is the consumer attitude towards forests, which is enshrined in law. The Forest Code, according to Alexey Yaroshenko from Greenpeace Russia, pays virtually no attention to reforestation, and treats the taiga as a “deposit of logs.” Indeed, the volume of reforestation in Russia leaves much to be desired. In 2016, in Russia, work in this direction took place on an area of 0.78 million hectares, and in China, the area of new plantings amounted to 28 million hectares.
Green Belt and Chinese Way
The Chinese are actively working in the forestry industry not only in Russia. Aware of its poor environmental reputation, Chinese authorities are increasingly talking about the need for “green development,” especially as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. But in reality, Chinese businesses behave completely differently abroad: much depends on the level of control on the part of local authorities. This can be seen very well in the example of forestry.
The Russian situation is similar to the situation in African countries. The Chinese highly value rosewood, and furniture made from it is a status symbol for the growing middle class. The largest suppliers of rosewood to China are Zambia, Congo, Mozambique, some of the poorest and most corrupt countries even by African standards. Chinese business there behaves almost the same as in Russia: wood buyers from China have become large employers, wood goes to the East cheaply, in an unprocessed form, and local authorities receive huge bribes for turning a blind eye to deforestation without a license.
In Africa, as in many regions of Siberia, there are no Chinese workers at logging sites; entrepreneurs from the PRC hire local residents. Africans, by the way, are happy about this cooperation: thanks to businessmen from China, they have stable work, which is paid above the market, and in cities closely associated with timber production, crime decreases and even the level of education increases.
While local authorities in African countries and in certain regions of Russia turn a blind eye to illegal logging on their territory, in New Zealand the work of Chinese companies is becoming important topic in regional elections. This is despite the fact that there Chinese companies are required to buy deforestation rights, which are agreed upon at the level central authorities. The costs of purchasing a license can only be covered by large businesses, so it is not small firms that operate in New Zealand, but the large China Forest Group Corporation (中国林业集团公司), created with the direct participation of Government controlled Forestry Department of the People's Republic of China (国家林业局).
CFGP New Zealand employs New Zealanders in senior positions and is actively expanding its local education grant program to boost trade relations between Beijing and Wellington. Local authorities appear to be tightly controlling Chinese investors: for example, the administration in the Wairarapa region created a fuss simply because a Chinese farmer, having bought a piece of land, blocked a public path into the forest, contrary to the instructions of the New Zealand Walking Commission (monitors compliance with the rules of natural public areas).
A thorough licensing system for forest production in New Zealand and control over even minor violations of land use rules practically eliminate the possibility of environmental problems. Reforestation programs are also actively carried out: in New Zealand this is done at the government level, which balances out large-scale deforestation. Forestry is one of the state’s priorities, and Chinese businesses (even large state corporations) here play by the rules set by local authorities. He does the same in Russia.
All of Siberia has been leased to the Chinese, the scale of deforestation is such that in 10 years there will be a bare desert here - such statements are increasingly found on the Internet. Some people blindly believe them, others simply brush them off, claiming that it’s all fake. The “Time-Forward” project decided to put an end to the long dispute and figure out how it really happens.
As always, based only on numbers and facts.
How much does China export?
The first figure that will help us understand the situation is the volume of Russian timber exports to China. China, indeed, is the largest buyer of our timber due to the fact that we have a convenient land border and high-quality timber. According to official data, we sell approximately 22 million cubic meters of forest products per year to our neighbor.
The export of timber bypassing customs is practically impossible and, if it exists, it is in scanty quantities. However, there remains the possibility of fraud at the customs itself with an underestimation of the volume of exports. The approximate scale can be calculated based on the needs of China. They amount to approximately 170 million cubic meters per year, about 100 of which are closed by China itself, and at least another 30 million cubic meters are supplied to China from other countries. It turns out that if we proceed from the bold assumption that only in Russia suppliers underestimate export volumes, then in total We sell 40 million cubic meters per year to our neighbor. Now let's figure out how much this is.
How much forest is there in Russia
Russia contains about one-fifth of the world's timber reserves. total area over 750 million hectares, which is more than Canada, Sweden, Norway, the USA and Finland. However, not all timber is suitable for industrial harvesting. In total, we have 30 billion cubic meters in reserve for these purposes, which is three times higher than the reserves of Canada and the United States.
Therefore, if we assume that China will buy Russian timber at the same pace as now, then even taking into account the black exports we have calculated, it will take approximately 800 years to export all industrial resources. But this will never happen for several reasons.
Firstly, China is increasing its own timber production and in 10-15 years intends to significantly reduce import volumes. Secondly, the forest is a renewable resource and, with the right approach, almost endless. Thirdly, we are not the only ones working with China, and Canada, New Zealand, Finland, the USA and other countries are fiercely competing for the right to sell their timber to China.
However, all of the above does not mean that we can now relax. We really have a lot of problems in the forestry industry.
Are the Chinese to blame?
The idea that all of Siberia and Primorye are overrun by Chinese lumberjacks who steal and secretly export our timber is not true. China simply does not need to take such risks, because the forests are illegally cut down for them by Russian citizens themselves. And the Chinese just buy it and send it home. Yes, often by participating in illegal transactions, but they are impossible without the participation of the Russian side. And the main problem here is not so much the scale of the shadow business, but its barbaric nature. Forests are being cut down indiscriminately with gross violations; there is not even talk of any compensatory restoration of the forest.
But the worst thing is that unauthorized dumps are formed at the felling sites, which often lead to fires. Namely, fires today destroy much more forest than its illegal extraction. Last year alone, 4.5 million hectares of forest were damaged due to fires in Russia. If it were only industrial timber, it would take 22 years to export it to China.
Now let's talk about what the state is doing to preserve our forest resources.
How to protect the forest
It would be unfair to say that the state turns a blind eye to the situation. The first step was to reduce the export of unprocessed roundwood and stimulate the export of lumber. Therefore, back in 2008, protective customs duties were introduced on the export of round timber, which led to a sharp reduction in the export of forest raw materials and the development of our own processing. The results are clearly visible in these graphs:
At the same time, it was prohibited to cut down rare and especially valuable forest species under pain of criminal punishment. The EGAIS system began to be used for forests. As a result, each tree is tracked throughout its commercial life - from the place where it was cut down to the border crossing. As a result, the volume of detected violations and the number of criminal cases increased 6 times.
Now the state has gone further and decided to stimulate deep wood processing using complex biochemical technologies. For this purpose, industry clusters and public-private partnership projects are being created; we talked about many of them in our issues.
And, literally, the other day a bill was finally adopted, which provides for the mandatory restoration of forests after deforestation. They are obliged to plant seedlings within one year after the work in a volume equal to the felled area. And of the same breed. Or contribute an equivalent amount to a fund that is engaged in reforestation independently.
The problem of illegal logging in Russia and smuggling to China exists and it is stupid to deny it. Its scale is not as great as popular rumor portrays;
The Chinese do not steal Russian timber, but buy it from our businessmen, who themselves easily break laws in the pursuit of profit;
Selling timber abroad is normal. The world's largest economies are fighting for the right to supply China;
Forest is a renewable resource. It can and should be sold, but at the same time it must be cut down according to the rules and managed effectively, in which we are still inferior to many forest countries;
Only the state is able to restore order in the forestry sector through tariff measures and strict control;
Any strengthening of control over the industry in the future will be accompanied by protests from those who are accustomed to making their living from illegal businesses, which means that we will still see protests on this topic and attempts to give it a political character.
Scientists believe that during the last ice ages in Russia there was no gloomy taiga, but an endless tundra-steppe, where mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses and musk oxen grazed. Then people came, ate the mammoths - and everything was overgrown with forest, because there was no one to trample the trees and fertilize the grass.
The country's tundra-steppe can be restored using national character and international economic cooperation.
Fires and logging annually destroy an average of 3-4 million hectares of forest. The clutter in those areas that form after clearing contributes to an increase in the number forest fires, which, in turn, leads to additional logging - under the pretext of eliminating the consequences. The circle closes.
Demand for wood is strong in Europe and growing in China, where logging in natural forests is now prohibited. And Russia provides China’s needs—a quarter of domestic timber goes to the Middle Kingdom. The volume is growing every year.
At the same time, the local authorities are not reporting about this at all, or rather, not quite about this at all - they are talking about the influx of Chinese investments in “harvesting and deep processing of wood.”
As a result, the entire Siberian taiga accessible to transport gapes with bald patches of clearings and black burnt areas.
IN southern regions the forest retreats to the north, and if you consistently continue what you started, your grandchildren will just see the reunification of the tundra and steppe. Unless they see mammoths.
True, resistance to logging and timber export is growing in the regions. On the Internet you can find a dozen petitions signed by thousands of people, both against the destruction of specific forests and the export of wood to China in general.
“Now, “by law”, almost all environmental restrictions on logging have been lifted... and over the past 10 years we have lost half of what has been accumulating for a millennium... Take an initiative to completely transition the logging industry in the Primorsky Territory to plantation cultivation over the next 5 years” - for example, a specialist in the ecology of cedar-broad-leaved forests, and with her 32 thousand signatories.
People don't just write. On May 11, a meeting was held in the Zakamensky district of Buryatia, which denied a lease to the “priority forest development project” of the MTK-JK company and its Chinese owner. Zakamenets immediately established people's council on forest control. Three days later, the police tried for an hour and a half to disperse demonstrators who were demanding “guarantees of a refusal from Chinese logging” on the threshold of the Khural (local parliament) in Ulan-Ude.
The head of Buryatia, Tsydenov, made a contradictory statement, combining respect for the will of the “misled” Zakamensk residents with a promise to give the forest to the tenant in the neighboring Eravninsky district and, in general, to restore order in the forests and the heads of the troublemakers. One problem is that there are three more breathing down the neck of the Buryat authorities.” priority projects” with federal lobbyists and foreign investors, as well as half the population of forested areas, living only from logging - legal and illegal.
The neighbors are doing even worse. Oleg Korsun, an ecologist and local historian from the Transbaikal University, reports that in the Khiloksky district - one of the most forested areas of the region - they cannot allocate a measly 20 cubic meters of forest to citizens for individual construction. The area of forests suitable for felling is being reduced so much that there is not enough for our own, the scientist states. A meme was born in the region - “To Manchuria for timber”, because in this Chinese borderland the processing capacity of timber imported from Siberia is concentrated.
The head of the Greenpeace forestry program, Alexey Yaroshenko, in the article “The Great Chinese Devastation of the Forests of Siberia” convincingly argues that, basically, it is not “the Chinese who are massively cutting down the forests of Siberia,” but Russian citizens— to saturate the Chinese market. But such volumes of exports of unprocessed and poorly processed wood are the result not of local arbitrariness, but of decisions of federal authorities, partly caused by the myth of Russia’s inexhaustible forest wealth.
The main feature of both Chinese and non-Chinese logging is that coniferous forests used as a practically non-renewable natural resource. Almost no one is engaged in the cultivation of such forests, that is, forestry itself in the classical sense, in the taiga zone. Natural restoration takes more than a century, and fires and climate change make it fundamentally problematic.
Taiga forests are used simply as a natural deposit of logs - and any deposit is sooner or later exhausted.
This problem cannot be solved solely by restrictions on exports or on the work of Chinese enterprises - since the Russian market consumes wood in the same wasteful manner, and Russian loggers treat forests no more carefully than Chinese ones. Therefore, simultaneous actions are necessary both to bring Russian forestry legislation into some decent condition, and to terminate specific projects, in to the greatest extent threatening Siberian and Far Eastern forests.
As an example of a project that needs to be stopped, ecologist Yaroshenko talks about the Amazar timber processing complex (aka ", aka "" company) under construction, which involves the annual production of 400,000 tons of cellulose and 700,000 cubic meters of lumber.
According to a Greenpeace expert, the project is absurd - according to him long work, and it is impossible to effectively grow forests on frozen soils. In 2016, the initiators of the project also finally admitted that they could not rent forest areas sufficient to supply even the first stage of the plant and promised to purchase what was missing from unknown “third-party suppliers.” Most likely, the main point of the project is not to develop the timber processing complex itself, but to justify the construction of a border bridge across the Amur to make it more convenient to export timber.
Back in 2003, a promise to build a pulp mill was made by the authorities of Heilongjiang Province to prevent the closure of businessman Nagel, an ally of the then governor, who was driving round timber to China. But in 2007, the crossing was closed due to violations, and the Amazar forestry complex project began using loans from the China Development Bank. Over the next 11 years, the plant was not completed, but, having spent 28 billion rubles, they made a mess: they tried to take over the lease of the territory, blocked the Amazar, a large tributary of the Amur, with a dam, falsified the results of public hearings, etc.
Finally, in 2018, the project was left without investment, having finally failed in its placement on , where the international complaints were sent environmental organizations. There seems to be every reason to stop and reconsider the unviable project, but this is politically difficult.
This is the third governor of Transbaikalia reporting to Moscow on “the creation of the largest Chinese forestry project in Russia.” Several governors of Heilongjiang Province were promoted for "building the Chinese-Mongolian-Russian economic corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative on far north China." After all, reporting on mutual cooperation neither Russian nor Chinese local authorities, except for stories about the export of raw materials - there is nothing more.
And the more hopeless this project became, the more more attention and he received benefits from the state. Now this is a “priority investment project” of the Ministry of Industry and Trade with a multiple reduction in forest payments, as well as a “priority investment project” of the region with tax benefits. In December 2017, the Chinese comrades generally asked for funding for this long-term construction in the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund, half of which is filled by Russian taxpayers. Plus, the administration of the Trans-Baikal Territory came to the rescue and included the construction of the Pokrovka-Logukhe bridge in the “Concept for the development of border territories of the Far Eastern federal district And Baikal region“, as well as in the recommendations of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation on the development of the region.
The Chinese are also not far behind. The Pokrovka-Logukhe crossing is included in long-term plans Heilongjiang Province's Belt and Road Initiative, providing a hypothetical opportunity to milk national infrastructure funds. To make up for the failure of the project and fit into the PRC “Silk Road” Program, the Chinese partners renamed the unnecessary long-term construction into “Amazar Park of Trade and Timber Cooperation “Polyarnaya”“. Now it is assumed that in addition to the never-launched pulp and sawmills, 10 more types of enterprises will appear, for which there is not even justification for investment. To organize this industrial park, an “Investment managed company in the zone of trade and economic cooperation in the forestry industry “XINBAN GUOJI” was established.
What is happening indicates that the pulp mill here is, rather, a screen, and real challenge- to gain a foothold in Amazar under any pretext, simulating the creation of any kind of production.
But there was a misfire: for reasons unexplained to the public, the XINBAN GUOJI Management Company has been in the process of liquidation since December 2017. It’s comical, but it is precisely the creation of the Amazar industrial park that appears in the “List of measures for the socio-economic development of the Trans-Baikal Territory for 2018-2025,” signed by Medvedev on May 3. The document promises 14 billion for the development of Transbaikalia, but wisely does not allocate a penny of money for the Amazar industrial park and related infrastructure.
So, the Amazar scam is heading towards inevitable collapse, and we must make sure that it does not come by destroying the last forests of Transbaikalia. But while the Amazar project is dying in agony, the Ministry of Industry and Trade cites it as an example of success, advertising to Chinese investors the possibility of investing in new capacities. And for only last year Several agreements have already been signed on the creation and expansion of pulp production from Arkhangelsk to Khabarovsk.
The mechanism for destroying the forests of Siberia is clear: the Chinese have a strict attitude to protect their own forests and a great need for wood. Since childhood they have heard about “ rich in resources country in the north." Russia is not able to provide the Chinese with current data on reserves of raw materials - forest management was carried out 5-15 years ago - even before the big fires. The Chinese are ready to take their word for it, since the agreement concluded with the Russian Federation will help them get loans at home. So Russian side is playing with fire as it tries to turn Chinese environmental restrictions and geopolitical aspirations into its competitive advantage. The government has already reduced environmental and social demands to forestry projects in a way that couldn’t be lower. Already, for example, nature reserves are being cut down (Novaya, for example, has already talked about nature reserves being cut down in the Irkutsk region).
So Russia only WAS the largest forest power.
Semyon Laskin- especially for Novaya
23:37 — REGNUM
Several facts of sabotage of state natural resources were recorded by local media in the Irkutsk region, as well as the Altai Territory and the Altai Republic. Moreover, in all cases, the main anti-heroes of the stories are Chinese citizens.
“After the flow of tourists from China increased in the Irkutsk region, society again talking about Chinese expansion. This time it manifested itself in the form of buying up land on Lake Baikal. The Chinese build hotels there, often illegally, for tourists from their homeland. Some observers see not just a redistribution of the local tourism market, but China’s desire to firmly grow into the shores of Lake Baikal.” , - informs IA.
You don't need to look far for examples. Just today, the administration of Listvyanka, through the court, prohibited illegal construction on the shore of Lake Baikal.
We are talking about illegal construction on the site at Gorky, 29. According to the prosecutor's office, it was organized by a Chinese citizen. Rocks have been exposed in the area and the topography has been changed. An investigation into the illegal construction is underway; the administration has revoked the developer's building permit.
But judging by the words of the head of the legal department of the Listvyanka administration Viktor Sinkov, the offender does not even think about stopping what he started. The editor and photographer of Irkutsk Online witnessed how work was carried out at the site throughout the entire day of December 10th. construction works. Equipment was digging the ground on the site, workers were burning a fire near the unfinished building.
“The demand to stop work was sent to the owner, but the owner does not react. In the future, the administration will initiate statement of claim on the cessation of construction on this plot of land. I think we’ll definitely submit it by the end of this year.” ,” noted Viktor Sinkov.
Meanwhile, the residents of Listvyanka themselves have no doubt that a hotel will soon appear on the shores of Lake Baikal and will immediately be filled with noisy guests from the Middle Kingdom.
“Smelly wastewater will immediately flow from them into a primitive septic tank and instantly seep through the pebble-sandy layer of soil into the larch bay: after all, there are still no sewerage systems or treatment facilities in the village.” , - the head of the local art song theater is annoyed Evgeny Krafko. And, according to him, there are many such sold “pieces of the homeland” here, specifically these 15 acres on the shore of Lake Baikal sold for only 4.5 million rubles.
The Chinese began actively buying land and opening businesses in Listvyanka and the Olkhon region when, due to the favorable dollar exchange rate, a large flow of Chinese tourists went to Lake Baikal. In 2016, over 150 thousand visited the Irkutsk region, which is almost 60% more than in 2015. This season, the region is expecting a new increase in tourists from China (40-50% more than in 2016).
“Our Baikal is being given to the Chinese! Their dominance is in the Irkutsk region and Russia" ,” lamented one of the respondents on the Irkutsk media website. The residents of Listvyanka themselves are now collecting signatures against the construction of camp sites on Lake Baikal.
But the tourism business is not so bad. From the video published below, you can get a more complete picture of the price of Irkutsk “friendship” with China: the felled forest stretches for tens of kilometers:
Altai is in a similar situation. Chinese citizens get there by road through third countries - Kazakhstan and Mongolia - and have also already begun to actively buy up businesses and mow down forests.
“They are sawing near roads and along the banks of rivers, including the Biya River, which will inevitably lead to increased floods in Biysk and Barnaul and downstream. This will complicate and general situation on the market, since local producers will not be able to compete with this cheap wood. And the lack of native forest in the Altai Mountains will lead to an influx of people wanting to profit from Altai Territory and Biysk in particular.
So far they are cutting in the Choysky and Turochaksky districts. Dormitories, sawmills, and timber processing bases are being built there and in Biysk. Is doing this Chinese Na Chunhong with a residence permit" , notes a member of the Altai branch of the Russian Geographical Society Sergey Belokon.
By the way, he is not the only one speaking about the seriousness of the situation with the predatory consumption of natural resources in Altai.
In connection with the large-scale cutting down of ribbon pine forests along the regional highway "Biysk - Artybash" in the area from the village of Tondoshka to the village of Verkh-Biysk, Turochaksky district, social tension has really worsened. , signatures for which are now being collected by residents of the district, the prosecutor is unable to prove the fact of overlap between the boundaries of agricultural land plots owned by individuals and the forest fund owned by Russian Federation. The refusal to satisfy the claims is explained by the lack of locally established boundaries of forest lands (that is, the ownership of the Russian Federation is registered in the Unified State Register, but the boundaries are not established on the ground).
The situation, according to local residents, is aggravated by passive position of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Property Relations of the Altai Republic representing the interests of the land owner.
“Over the past year and a half that litigation has been ongoing, representatives of the ministry in court hearings did not take part. Also, no steps have been taken to establish the boundaries of land plots in the area. It is the lack of boundaries of the forest fund land plots that is the stumbling block.” , - said in the petition of residents of the Turochak district.
Meanwhile, logging along the highway, according to them, has been going on for about a year, but in the fall of 2017 it intensified significantly. It cannot be a concern that the Turochaksky district is a territory of compact residence of indigenous peoples of Siberia, whose life and culture are inextricably linked with the forest. the federal law protects their rights, and deforestation is contrary to the foundations of their lives.
What is happening has already entailed a gathering of citizens in village of Verkh-Biysk, where the collection of signatures began in support of an appeal to the president of the country. It is possible that this will be followed by new rallies and other manifestations.
“Residents’ outrage over deforestation is fair and justified. However, in the current situation, the authorities cannot prohibit logging, since it is carried out by the owner of the land. In Tondoshka, these plots, which previously belonged to an agricultural enterprise, are, from a legal point of view, agricultural lands, not forest lands.” , - previously stated the head of the Altai Republic Alexander Berdnikov.
Through a gradual, systematic influence, certain forces brought the earthly civilization of people to virtually a social catastrophe.
One should not assume that cities on Earth are a consequence of the urbanization process. Urbanization is not the reason. This is just a screen behind which the essence of what is happening is hidden. A kind of fig leaf. And it is wrong to consider cities a natural phenomenon, as if earthly civilization cannot do without them. Wow, megacities are the center of culture, science, and industry! Just what culture? Artificially created, divorced from reality, massive, perverted and inherently slavish. The same can be said about science. The city only hinders the accumulation of knowledge about the world around us.
There is too much interference: there is no clean water, no air, no space. Moreover, on scientific experiments are constantly affected by artificial electromagnetic fields. The last factor has a detrimental effect on the psyche. As has become known from numerous studies, electromagnetic fields destroy neurons. What kind of science is there when the human nervous system is suppressed and works in hostile conditions? Memory is lost and there is a constant lack of energy. All serious discoveries, as a rule, are made in special laboratories outside the city, in nature. So there is no need to talk about serious science in megacities. This is a well-executed comedy.
Only industrial enterprises remained, where, dull from the bustle of various everyday problems, the harmful effects of cellular stations and other types electromagnetic influence modern slaves, Being in constant stress, sell for money their strength and the time allotted to them “from above” for life. I said "slaves", and this is not hyperbole, but a sad fact. The cities of our vaunted civilization were created, first of all, as gigantic containers for humanoid bipedal creatures that had lost their higher purpose.
The Western Asian spirit of merchandising realized at the dawn of time that it was almost impossible to manage independent people living on the land by their own labor. They are self-sufficient. They feed themselves, clothe themselves, and live in harmony with nature. And what is most unpleasant, not according to their far-fetched, but according to her, Nature - universal laws. And the Semitic worshipers of the Spirit of the Desert began to act. You must know that everything starts with an ideology that people themselves do not invent. They usually slip it to them.
The first money appeared, and so did its owners. Who they are is no longer a secret.
Now it’s clear why, according to the Talmud, God’s chosen ones are forbidden to cultivate the land in exile? So that they always concentrate in cities and do not try to go to the ground.
Back in the 7th century, Rus' was called Gardarika, i.e. country of cities. And there really were many cities in Rus'. But the interesting thing is that the population of Russian cities, despite the fact that they stood for hundreds of years, never exceeded seven to eight thousand. For a long time, scientists could not understand the reason for this. All over the world, cities grew faster, but in Rus' they did not. There were more of them, it’s a fact, but the number of residents in Slavic cities has always been limited. Finally, the scientific men guessed what was going on. It turns out that the inhabitants of Russian cities, no matter who they were: blacksmiths, potters, shoemakers, never lost touch with the land. Living in cities, they remained half peasants. The same can be said about the boyars and even the princes. In Pagan Rus', work in the field was considered sacred and the most prestigious. In Rus' at that time there was a saying “The second mother is our land.” Every Russian had two mothers: one gave life, the second helped to become a full-fledged person.
If we remember the ancient epics, which of our heroes was the most famous? Mikula Selyaninovich, plowman. In terms of strength, it turned out to be more powerful than Svetogor himself. In his bag lay earthly cravings. In other words, it could easily bear the gravitational field of the planet! In pre-Christian times, he was the most respected person in Rus'. Does this mean anything? But in the Christian era, the same ideology of contempt for everything rustic and natural arose, which we see in our time. In Christianized cities, Oratai began to be called smerds from the 10th century. That means stinking - dirty. You can still hear: “Hey you, village!” The word “collective farmer” has become synonymous with the word “moron.” But this is only the background, the field on which the tragedy that we are now witnessing unfolded. When cities began to grow rapidly in Rus', and throughout the world, the Jewish Masters of Money began the second stage of creating an urban herd.
What is the mechanism of urban growth in the West? Each serf, having entered the city and lived in it for a year, received freedom. How everything was arranged for them: the city imperceptibly turned into a trap for the peasants. First they crushed people into feudal dependence, and then they opened the gates, they say, come here. But without any property. As who? Hired worker. More precisely, a real slave! Only instead of a taskmaster and a whip, dependence on money began to appear. Now about the money. We won't say who invented them. Some researchers argue that they are God's chosen ones, others - that they allegedly appeared on their own. Both are wrong. Money on Earth was created by those who wrote the Torah or the Bible. But at first they were gold, silver and precious stones. For the first stage of concentration of power in the few who had enough of it. In one person, merchants-usurers for seven centuries, trading in slaves, furs, Chinese silk and other things, distributed among themselves the entire bulk of metal money. And not only in the west, but also in the east. After this, the transition to paper counterfeits began throughout the planet. These are what the bankers created. This is true. And the masters of God's chosen ones. How was this done? It’s very simple: paper money appeared as bills of exchange for valuables deposited in banks. But the fact is that the bankers, realizing that no one would take away all the gold deposits from them at once, and besides, they also had their own reserves of gold, began to write out such a number of paper bills, which was several times greater than the reserves stored in their basements precious metal. Fakes? Yes, of course, and in huge quantities! Not provided with anything. But by giving them away at interest, they already received a real return.
They exchanged air for gold and jewelry. Unfortunately, this process continues to operate in our era. Nothing changed. True, for some time the role of private banks was taken over by state banks. By law, only they could mint gold and issue paper money. But this did not last long. After 1913, the issue of the world currency, the dollar, again passed into the hands of private owners. I mean the Fed.
This is where the huge mass of essentially counterfeit money on Earth came from, and these counterfeits are directly related to the size of the urban population. The limited supply of gold and silver money at one point stopped the influx of rural population into the city. You can't live in the city without money. No matter how much you advertise it, if a small part of its population, mainly the rich, have the money, then you will run not to the city, but, on the contrary, from the city, to free bread. This process has begun throughout Europe. One part of the urban poor began to return to the countryside, while the other, together with the bankers and petty bourgeoisie, took up the destruction of the feudal order. Lack of money raised the masses to bourgeois revolutions. This was also the plan. Only in Russia everything turned out differently. And in the east. The Russian peasant, even the serf, did not really strive to go to the city. Moreover, the city, unlike Western European practice, did not free him from serfdom. Instead of the sweet city life, he strove for Siberia, away from the power of the landowners. To freedom. That is why Russia, until the first half of the 20th century, despite the propaganda against the countryside, remained an agrarian country. It turned into a state of megacities only after the industrialization carried out by Stalin. The West forced her to do this, otherwise she would have died.
But let's return to counterfeit paper money. Now, thanks to them, it was possible to keep any number of slaves in cities. Papers are not gold. You can print as many of them as you like. That's the secret. But with counterfeit money, an equally counterfeit person became necessary. In fact, a hominoid of a different race and a completely different culture. Unable to feed himself with his own labor, completely dependent and unable to imagine his life without pieces of paper called money. I didn't say anything about race. Precisely a different race.
What does it mean? After all, city residents successfully not only feed themselves, but also accumulate considerable material values. They feed from stores - supermarkets, thanks to pieces of paper that allow them to do this. So to speak, of a permissive nature to universal documents issued by their owners. And deprive our citizens of life-saving stores, take away public services: electricity, heating and hot water in winter or, even easier, deprive them of their money! What will happen? This whole huge mass of civilized subhumans will immediately turn into a wild, brutal herd of monkeys. General looting will begin. Brother will tear a piece of bread out of brother's mouth. Without hesitation, kill for a warm blanket. And it would never occur to anyone to leave the city for nature, to Mother Earth. Engage in fishing, collecting wild plants, raising livestock and, finally, farming. It will be easier for them to strangle their own kind than to take a shovel and dig up edible roots or make a wick for catching fish. I'm not even talking about the construction of a primitive dwelling and a simple Russian stove.
Why will this happen? On the one hand, because a city dweller does not know how to do anything like this. On the other hand, he simply won’t want to. He learned to really work a long time ago. A highly specialized psyche, formed by an urban lifestyle, will not allow him to do this. It is easier for a city dweller to engage in robbery than to try to save himself through labor. Urban population, or a bunch of slaves, are so dependent on the pieces of paper they receive from their owners, which are called money, that they, these fakes, have become a god for the townspeople. Their only real value, which allows slaves of the spirit to enjoy life. It was this pseudo-value that formed the subrace of urban residents. The fact that this is a kind of subrace has been noticed by many researchers. And not only ours, but also Western ones.
So what is the mechanism for the formation of a slave race in cities? It, like everything ingenious, is very simple. It is known that everything external in a person is connected with the internal; this is a law of nature. Overconcentration on some aspect or image inhibits the development of other qualities in the mind. The psyche begins to malfunction in the direction where the human ego aimed it. Where does this lead? To only one thing - to consolidate such a quality in the depths of the subconscious. Here is the mechanism for building degenerative human psyche, one for which spiritual values cease to exist as such. For her, only the value of money is real, which allows her to acquire trading network various material goods. Vulgar materialism was not born in the countryside, it is a product of megacities. It was formed as a result of the overconcentration of people on mining Money. This is very serious factor. An ocean of paper fakes with which the system drives the simple-minded into the cities rural population, simultaneously turns normal people in the mentally impaired. Those for whom the pursuit of material values becomes the meaning of life. For money, such bastards are ready to commit any crime. Because their consciousness does not perceive anything else besides mercantile interests. Not villagers, but city dwellers with a distorted psyche are easily sold and easily bought. Statistics show that our officials were and remain in first place in terms of corruption. Following them, according to tradition, are the pathetic intelligentsia, who hate their people. Together with her Orthodox Church. Basically, its top. Then they go various kinds traders-speculators and the like. The fact that urban workers are least susceptible to such an infection does not speak about their beliefs, but about the fact that they still have a healthy gene pool, since their grandfathers, or even fathers, came from rural areas. Only sudras or slaves, people with a slave mentality, can be easily controlled.
The civilization of megacities forges such people. And, I must say, successfully. For a long time, especially at school, we were taught that a slave is someone who is whipped to work, poorly fed, and can be killed at any moment. If a slave realizes that he has been turned into slavery, then in spirit he is already free. A real slave is one who does not even suspect that he, his family and all the people around him are slaves. The one who doesn’t even think about the fact that, in fact, he is completely powerless. That its masters, with the help of specially created laws, security forces, utilities and, above all, with the help of money, they can force him to do whatever they need from him.
Modern slavery is not the slavery of the past. It's different. And it is not built on forceful coercion, but on a radical change in consciousness. When a proud and free person, under the influence of certain technologies, through the influence of ideology, the power of money, fear and cynical lies, turns into a mentally inferior, easily controlled, corrupt degenerate. A slave of the spirit who delights in his chains. We usually call him a layman. Officials, well aware of who they are dealing with, call such a crowd of city slaves with the capacious word “cattle.” What are the megacities of the planet like? Of course, giant concentration camps. Containers of mentally broken, crippled and absolutely powerless ordinary Shudras. To live in a city you only need money. To hell with talents and vocations. Long live the place that pays more! Here it is - a simple and effective mechanism for the death of what we came into this world for. Everything changes with money. Even life itself.
We'll talk about this aspect separately. It is no secret that in modern cities the air is poisoned by car exhaust fumes. In the centers of such cities it is generally impossible to breathe. In summer, the heat becomes especially unbearable. During traffic jams, you can lose consciousness. Poisoned air destroys the health of children and kills the elderly. When there is no wind, cities become especially dangerous. But the paradox is this: in the central part of megalopolises the most expensive land and the most expensive apartments are sold! How can we understand this? Crazy, but it's a fact! No science can explain this behavior of people. Does prestige change for health? But can such a phenomenon be explained only by prestige?