Russian forest, Chinese wood?
Russia sells wood to China from time immemorial. He was fused to his southern neighbor on numerous rivers, carried on carts, and even automobile transport was used in Soviet times. But it was not possible to organize regular deliveries of timber and lumber, and even more so - products of deeper processing, for example, paper, by rail on really solid scales.
And this is despite the appearance of arteries such as the CER, Transsib, and then the BAM. China has never been, and today has not become the main buyer of the “Russian forest”. For this role, we have long chosen Finland. However, according to Rosstat. for the purchase of roundwood, the Chinese have already taken the lead.
Harvesting and export of roundwood in Russia. Source: Rosstat
Nevertheless, the information background around a number of generally minor projects and decisions on cooperation between Russia and China in the forest industry almost immediately became negative. Social networks are literally overflowing with reports of “cutting down Siberian forests”, about “echelons of logs prepared for shipment to Celestial”.
In Buryatia and Transbaikalia, “green” citizens and citizens of solidarity with them, concerned about the fate of the “Russian forest”, regularly rally. And at the same time with the forest - and the sacred Baikal. And few people noticed that all this happened in an environment where China very significantly increased the volume of purchases of wood processing products, as well as unprocessed forest in the United States.
Yes, it is in the United States, where, unlike in Russia, the extent of deforestation in recent years has not been reduced. At the same time, and in China itself, despite numerous allegations of a total ban on deforestation, this industry is not just developing, but growing at a faster pace.
As a result, the conclusion literally suggests itself that the problem of “Chinese lumberjacks” is not simply largely contrived. It seems to be inspired by those who are unprofitable expansion of economic ties between the two countries in any field. And it doesn’t matter that the reality again and again denies fake stuffing, especially since the “bad forests” in Russia are really becoming more and more.
And not only in Siberia and around Baikal. But this does not always happen only because it is barbarically cut down. Whether the Chinese, or Chinese mercenaries from the local. Strange as it may seem, but among the causes of the degradation of many forests there are precisely the clearly insufficient amounts of logging carried out in order to clean and protect against all kinds of pests.
However, we must not forget that China buys wood in a number of other countries, and practically regular interruptions in supplies from Russia for it are generally not critical. The interruptions themselves are connected, as usual, with our internal Russian problems.
At the same time, even by no means official statistics, but data from independent research centers, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), testify to truly amazing facts.
Even taking into account illegal logging in most regions, where, according to a number of media reports, China is “uncontrolled” for lumbering, the volume of industrial logging does not reach the minimum required scale.
The scale necessary to maintain the forests in the state, which among experts is called “acceptable for logging, in which the ecological well-being of the territory will not be harmed”. And which, by the way, subsequently allows us to once again effectively develop the forestry industry.
For example, in Buryatia, according to WWF estimates, which almost coincide with Rosstat data, on average it is possible, but actually necessary, annual cutting of 10 million cubic meters (in 2017-m - 10,5 million). However, each year no more than 27% of this volume is cut down in the republic (on average over the past ten years - 23%). For example, last year the total 2,6 million cubic meters was cut down.
Approximately the same is true of the information on the millions of cubic meters that go for nothing to China. We will not even argue about the “cheap song”: in the end, who wants to work at a loss, he cannot be forbidden. It is more important that deductions of taxes and customs duties fully correspond to export volumes.
So, do export volumes of untreated wood to China grow? As can be seen from the graph below, Rosstat is growing a little, but after such a significant decline that there is still no question of even reaching the 2011 level of the year.
In fact, statistics show that, starting around the 2008 year, almost synchronously with the global financial crisis, deliveries to lumber and not round timber began to grow in China. Let's not forget the fact that it was in 2008 that the Russian government sharply (to 25 percent) increased customs duties on the export of roundwood from Siberia, making them almost prohibitive.
Despite the fact that after Russia's entry into the WTO (in 2012), the duties had to be reduced from 25 to 15 percent, the barrier remained almost insurmountable: the country imposed strict quotas. Since that time, the forest from our country can legally be exported mainly in the form of lumber: boards and beams. Moreover, the industry has acquired a control system similar to that used in the alcoholic beverage industry, when the labeled unit of production is tracked down to the retail counter.
It is clear why, at the same time, in Transbaikalia, the Irkutsk Region and Buryatia, as well as in the neighboring regions, although not on such a scale, its own processing began to flourish. As based on timber industry enterprises that managed to survive from Soviet times, and due to the emergence of many small and medium-sized farms with their own sawmills. All this together led to a decrease in the total export volumes of Russian forests to China.
However, with the development of local processing immediately went to the growth of purchases of boards and lumber, which, as we see, is confirmed by statistics.
The recent devaluation of the ruble pushed Chinese partners to change their business strategy. Instead of trying to settle in the “Russian forest” with their own brigades of lumberjacks, or, moreover, try to work themselves in woodworking in one way or another, they decided to take the path of investing in Russian industries.
And it is better directly, buying shares in enterprises or turning them into Russian branches of Chinese companies. So far, I must admit, this strategy does not work too successfully. The main reason for the difficulties with attracting investments remains the Russian bureaucracy, both at the top and in the field, where the procedure for registration of cutting areas for rent is delayed so that oncoming interest on loans sometimes even the Chinese discourage the desire to continue business.
But there is another reason, obviously scaring the Chinese, half-dead intimidated by the anti-corruption practices of the Peking authorities. This is about a purely Russian tradition of working not because of, but in spite of. And contrary to the law as well.
The Chinese, like the Siberians themselves, are quite aware of the fact that the Russian foresters, which we generally do not officially exist today, seem to have turned from the “owners of the taiga” into such “tillers of the forest”.
Officials associated with the forest, almost without exception, mired in corruption. The selfless, of course, the practice of allocating plots more than allotted in the documents, has long become the norm. In this regard, the official statistics of logging does not reflect the real extent of harvesting.
And exports, most likely, also, although it is still far from easy to cross the Russian-Chinese border with a significant “excess weight”. And yet, as loggers say, if a hundred cubic meters grow on one hectare in reporting, this does not mean at all that three hundred and even four hundred cannot be cut down on it.
Judging only by sales volumes of timber and lumber, it becomes clear that in the regions bordering China, forests are cut down much more than they pass through the reporting papers. In addition, the Russian “rules of the game” in this area, starting with the notorious Forest Code, are such that today there is no one to answer for the barbaric use of forests today. The country's full-fledged forestry seems to exist only on paper.
In the Republican Forestry Agency of Buryatia, commenting on the hype around the “Chinese expansion”, they noted that the practice of modern logging itself worries them more. After the introduction of strict rules and quotas, it became usual when the forest received quite legally and was also exported legally. But how it was cut down and taken out, no one even represents.
Increasingly, the processing of plots is carried out with gross violations of forest use rules, more precisely, without any rules at all. Cutting down cleaned up to the young, already few people are surprised, not that scary. Plots after cutting are not removed, which prevents the growth of new trees, and the forest is not restored. And the expense in such a cabin is, alas, not on hundreds of cubic meters, but on tens of thousands.
In Russia today, there is no effective forest protection, and no measures, even minimal, have been taken to combat forest fires. And even more so for their prevention. For everything, as has been the custom for many years, the Ministry of Emergency Situations is blowing away.
Is it any wonder that the forests in Russia, and especially in the taiga zone, are degrading faster than they even manage to cut down. And this is not done by guests from the Middle Kingdom.
And this is despite the appearance of arteries such as the CER, Transsib, and then the BAM. China has never been, and today has not become the main buyer of the “Russian forest”. For this role, we have long chosen Finland. However, according to Rosstat. for the purchase of roundwood, the Chinese have already taken the lead.
Harvesting and export of roundwood in Russia. Source: Rosstat
Nevertheless, the information background around a number of generally minor projects and decisions on cooperation between Russia and China in the forest industry almost immediately became negative. Social networks are literally overflowing with reports of “cutting down Siberian forests”, about “echelons of logs prepared for shipment to Celestial”.
In Buryatia and Transbaikalia, “green” citizens and citizens of solidarity with them, concerned about the fate of the “Russian forest”, regularly rally. And at the same time with the forest - and the sacred Baikal. And few people noticed that all this happened in an environment where China very significantly increased the volume of purchases of wood processing products, as well as unprocessed forest in the United States.
Yes, it is in the United States, where, unlike in Russia, the extent of deforestation in recent years has not been reduced. At the same time, and in China itself, despite numerous allegations of a total ban on deforestation, this industry is not just developing, but growing at a faster pace.
As a result, the conclusion literally suggests itself that the problem of “Chinese lumberjacks” is not simply largely contrived. It seems to be inspired by those who are unprofitable expansion of economic ties between the two countries in any field. And it doesn’t matter that the reality again and again denies fake stuffing, especially since the “bad forests” in Russia are really becoming more and more.
And not only in Siberia and around Baikal. But this does not always happen only because it is barbarically cut down. Whether the Chinese, or Chinese mercenaries from the local. Strange as it may seem, but among the causes of the degradation of many forests there are precisely the clearly insufficient amounts of logging carried out in order to clean and protect against all kinds of pests.
However, we must not forget that China buys wood in a number of other countries, and practically regular interruptions in supplies from Russia for it are generally not critical. The interruptions themselves are connected, as usual, with our internal Russian problems.
At the same time, even by no means official statistics, but data from independent research centers, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), testify to truly amazing facts.
Even taking into account illegal logging in most regions, where, according to a number of media reports, China is “uncontrolled” for lumbering, the volume of industrial logging does not reach the minimum required scale.
The scale necessary to maintain the forests in the state, which among experts is called “acceptable for logging, in which the ecological well-being of the territory will not be harmed”. And which, by the way, subsequently allows us to once again effectively develop the forestry industry.
For example, in Buryatia, according to WWF estimates, which almost coincide with Rosstat data, on average it is possible, but actually necessary, annual cutting of 10 million cubic meters (in 2017-m - 10,5 million). However, each year no more than 27% of this volume is cut down in the republic (on average over the past ten years - 23%). For example, last year the total 2,6 million cubic meters was cut down.
Approximately the same is true of the information on the millions of cubic meters that go for nothing to China. We will not even argue about the “cheap song”: in the end, who wants to work at a loss, he cannot be forbidden. It is more important that deductions of taxes and customs duties fully correspond to export volumes.
So, do export volumes of untreated wood to China grow? As can be seen from the graph below, Rosstat is growing a little, but after such a significant decline that there is still no question of even reaching the 2011 level of the year.
In fact, statistics show that, starting around the 2008 year, almost synchronously with the global financial crisis, deliveries to lumber and not round timber began to grow in China. Let's not forget the fact that it was in 2008 that the Russian government sharply (to 25 percent) increased customs duties on the export of roundwood from Siberia, making them almost prohibitive.
Despite the fact that after Russia's entry into the WTO (in 2012), the duties had to be reduced from 25 to 15 percent, the barrier remained almost insurmountable: the country imposed strict quotas. Since that time, the forest from our country can legally be exported mainly in the form of lumber: boards and beams. Moreover, the industry has acquired a control system similar to that used in the alcoholic beverage industry, when the labeled unit of production is tracked down to the retail counter.
It is clear why, at the same time, in Transbaikalia, the Irkutsk Region and Buryatia, as well as in the neighboring regions, although not on such a scale, its own processing began to flourish. As based on timber industry enterprises that managed to survive from Soviet times, and due to the emergence of many small and medium-sized farms with their own sawmills. All this together led to a decrease in the total export volumes of Russian forests to China.
However, with the development of local processing immediately went to the growth of purchases of boards and lumber, which, as we see, is confirmed by statistics.
The recent devaluation of the ruble pushed Chinese partners to change their business strategy. Instead of trying to settle in the “Russian forest” with their own brigades of lumberjacks, or, moreover, try to work themselves in woodworking in one way or another, they decided to take the path of investing in Russian industries.
And it is better directly, buying shares in enterprises or turning them into Russian branches of Chinese companies. So far, I must admit, this strategy does not work too successfully. The main reason for the difficulties with attracting investments remains the Russian bureaucracy, both at the top and in the field, where the procedure for registration of cutting areas for rent is delayed so that oncoming interest on loans sometimes even the Chinese discourage the desire to continue business.
But there is another reason, obviously scaring the Chinese, half-dead intimidated by the anti-corruption practices of the Peking authorities. This is about a purely Russian tradition of working not because of, but in spite of. And contrary to the law as well.
The Chinese, like the Siberians themselves, are quite aware of the fact that the Russian foresters, which we generally do not officially exist today, seem to have turned from the “owners of the taiga” into such “tillers of the forest”.
Officials associated with the forest, almost without exception, mired in corruption. The selfless, of course, the practice of allocating plots more than allotted in the documents, has long become the norm. In this regard, the official statistics of logging does not reflect the real extent of harvesting.
And exports, most likely, also, although it is still far from easy to cross the Russian-Chinese border with a significant “excess weight”. And yet, as loggers say, if a hundred cubic meters grow on one hectare in reporting, this does not mean at all that three hundred and even four hundred cannot be cut down on it.
Judging only by sales volumes of timber and lumber, it becomes clear that in the regions bordering China, forests are cut down much more than they pass through the reporting papers. In addition, the Russian “rules of the game” in this area, starting with the notorious Forest Code, are such that today there is no one to answer for the barbaric use of forests today. The country's full-fledged forestry seems to exist only on paper.
In the Republican Forestry Agency of Buryatia, commenting on the hype around the “Chinese expansion”, they noted that the practice of modern logging itself worries them more. After the introduction of strict rules and quotas, it became usual when the forest received quite legally and was also exported legally. But how it was cut down and taken out, no one even represents.
Increasingly, the processing of plots is carried out with gross violations of forest use rules, more precisely, without any rules at all. Cutting down cleaned up to the young, already few people are surprised, not that scary. Plots after cutting are not removed, which prevents the growth of new trees, and the forest is not restored. And the expense in such a cabin is, alas, not on hundreds of cubic meters, but on tens of thousands.
In Russia today, there is no effective forest protection, and no measures, even minimal, have been taken to combat forest fires. And even more so for their prevention. For everything, as has been the custom for many years, the Ministry of Emergency Situations is blowing away.
Is it any wonder that the forests in Russia, and especially in the taiga zone, are degrading faster than they even manage to cut down. And this is not done by guests from the Middle Kingdom.
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