"Conceptually, the law violates the state's interests because forest relations cannot be based on land relations," the deputy of the lower house told journalists this Tuesday.
Alexander Belyakov explained that forests could not be considered from the viewpoint of land relations - something what was stipulated in the new version of the code. "Forests are a natural resource," he stressed.
In his opinion, the State Duma should have introduced amendments into the previous version of the Forest Code to assign forests through lease (in 49 years) to leaseholders acting in good faith.
The new wording of the Forest Code stipulates a lease term of 99 years and in 15 years a forest area can be bought out for ownership. According to Belyakov, the new code also fails to take into account forestry specifics. "The main thing today is to keep the manageability of forests, state presence in forests and give up the assignment of forests to constituent members of the Russian Federation for ownership," Belyakov said.
He believes that forests must remain under general federal ownership with the right of operational management belonging to constituent members of the Russian Federation.
