The regulatory environment of the wood market is obsolete and ineffective. 10 of 44 acts are outdated and 6 of them are illegal. Most of the regulations, including the Forest Code, have been adopted in the 90s. It does not allow the market to develop and creates high risks of corruption. These points are the results of the analytical study conducted by the BRDO experts and presented as the Green Paper.
The Green Paper “Wood market regulation” includes all the problems of the sector along with the analysis of their causes. Key findings of the analytical study are:
- the strategy of forest relations development has not been approved yet, it is impossible to determine priorities of the forest policy and highlight the main measuring targets to develop the wood market;
- the legal environment has many gaps, which have a decisive impact on the market. In particular, it was not determined when the forest becomes a commodity; there are no common approaches concerning definitions of “raw wood”, “fuel wood”, “forest trees” and others; there is no record of forests and their sustainable management; the current regulation can not do anything with illegal logging and the losses can not be estimated; mechanisms to sell the wood are non-transparent.
These problems are compounded by a lack of funding, ineffective protection of forests and their restoration as well as by many other secondary problems.
The Green Paper launches online consultations in this area. After a series of consultations and round table discussions with all stakeholders in the forest sector, the issues included into the Green Paper will form a basis of proposals to change regulatory rules. Our goal is to find a balance between economic, environmental and social functions of Ukrainian forests.
You can read and comment on the Green Paper “Market access restrictions” here.
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