President Putin has been urged by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) to improve protection of Russia’s forestlands.
In a letter to the president, the WWF said that Russia’s forests are “of enormous importance for the world, sustaining much of the global ecological balance”.
“They are also of critical importance for Europe as they harbour some of the last places on theEuropean continent where genetic and biological diverity remain undisturbed,” it said.
The WWF added that Russia has a long tradition of protecting its forests and under previous regimes regional administrations secured “Gifts to the Earth” awards from the WWF for their achievements on this front.
But the organisation warned President Putin that a break down in managment systems in protected areas of forest and “low levels of enforcement on issues such as illegal logging” were now posing a “key threat to biodiversity”.
The WWF urged him to support the establishment of an “independent agency” to manage Russia’s protected forests. Without this, it said, Russia’s “past forest protection efforts may get destroyed”.