Policy forum: Challenges of forest governance: Biomass export from Leningrad oblast, North-West of Russia

Russia accounts for approximately 20% of the world's forest cover. More than 59% of the total territory of the Russian Federation is classified as forest land. However, the forest sector contributes only 1.3% to Russian gross domestic product and the Russian forest industry accounts for less than 4% of the world's forest products trade. This paper analyzes the most significant challenges facing Russian forest management including example of wood chips export to the EU and will suggest specific policy proposals that could be made in order to improve the forest management and forest transportation in Russia. Russian forestry has a lot of challenges such as lack of proper forest infrastructure, inadequate forest fire protection, unqualified personnel and unclear legislation. Most of these challenges are linked to one another and solving one problem can lead to the solution of others. The improvement of Russian forest governance is difficult and hard for policy, but without significant changes in current Russian forest management practices, forest degradation in Russia will continue to increase. The degradation of Russian forests could lead to a loss of global resources in general.