In Russian legislation, the concept of ameliorative protective forest plantations appeared, and those responsible were assigned to their content. Amendments to the federal law "On land reclamation" entered into force on January 1, 2020.
Land owners will have to maintain and maintain ameliorative protective forest stands. And if they grow in areas owned by the state or municipal property, these responsibilities are assigned to the authorities.
Protective forest plantations are, in fact, forest belts planted by man. Their goal is to protect various objects from adverse natural and anthropogenic factors. In the case of farmland, forest belts help fight drought, soil erosion from water and wind. They are arranged by planting or sowing mainly in steppe, forest-steppe and semi-desert regions.
The need to adopt the law was dictated by the fact that the legal status of protective forest plantations was not determined, the issues of their registration and maintenance were not regulated, the Ministry of Agriculture told RG. Forest belts created in Soviet times were ownerless for many years. Trees were illegally sawed for firewood, disposed of in order to widen tracks or build something on the side of the road. All of this exacerbated environmental concerns. The introduction of new rules will help to eliminate these gaps to some extent.
“The bill stipulates the obligation of the owners of land plots to ensure the maintenance and preservation of ameliorative protective forest plantations. At the same time, in cases where plantations are located on plots in state or municipal ownership, and are not transferred for use to third-party organizations, these responsibilities are assigned to the authorities, "the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture explained to RG.
The bill gives the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia and the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation the relevant powers. The owners of land are obligated to submit information on the presence and condition of reclamation protective forest plantations, the department said.
Comment
Alexander Petrikov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The law develops the legal framework for agroforestry as the most important area of agricultural land reclamation. This is important for the steppe and forest-steppe regions where there is a lack of moisture in the soil, to protect field and pasture lands from erosion in all agricultural zones of the country.
According to the latest report of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia "On the state and use of agricultural land in 2017", out of 10 thousand hectares of arable land surveyed for wind and water erosion, wind erosion was detected on an area of 485,44 thousand hectares (1, 424,17% of the total surveyed area), water - on an area of 13,6 thousand hectares (1%).
In the old version of the federal law "On land reclamation", adopted back in 1996, in Art. 7, general types of agroforestry were established (anti-erosion, field-protective, pasture-protective), but it was not determined that all of them should be carried out by creating ameliorative protective forest plantations, the so-called forest belts.
It was not established that the owners of the land plots on which the reclamation protective forest plantations are located are obliged to maintain the forest belts in proper condition. It was also not established that the state authorities and local self-government bodies, within the limits of their powers, organize measures to preserve reclamation protective forest plantations.
A novelty of the law is a special article 20.1., Which establishes the procedure for accounting for reclamation protective forest plantations, the composition, form and procedure for providing information subject to such accounting. The adoption of the accounting procedure is attributed to the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture. Article 29.1. it is also established that the Ministry of Agriculture determines the Rules for the maintenance of ameliorative protective forest plantations and the specifics of measures to preserve them. It should be noted that the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia had the authority to adopt such rules (in the old version of the “rules for maintaining protective forest plantations”) earlier (in accordance with the old law), but they were never adopted, since it was not clear who their must comply.
Uncertainty of the legal position of forest belts, the order of their accounting and maintenance rules, ultimately led to the fact that they were ownerless, degraded, and were sources of fire danger. Their reproduction was not specifically funded from the federal budget.
Certain regions allocated funds for caring for them from regional budgets (for example, Krasnodar Territory), partially the federal center co-financed these costs as part of supporting general regional programs for land reclamation. As follows from the National Report on the Implementation of the State Program of Agriculture in 2018, agroforestry activities were carried out only on an area of 119,1 thousand hectares.
As you know, by February 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture should develop a program for involving agricultural land in circulation and the development of land reclamation. It is advisable that agroforestry becomes part of this program. The new law, which comes into force on July 1, 2020, creates a legal basis for this.
Source: https://rg.ru/