MOSCOW, May 22 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the Chita Region's department of Russia's environmental watchdog has been dismissed over failure to control illegal deforestation in the East Siberian region, the natural resources minister said Tuesday.
"We have simply dismissed Inga Zinovyeva, our head of the environmental watchdog in the Chita Region," Yury Trutnev told Russian News Service radio.
Last week Trutnev and Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev held a conference on illegal logging in the Chita Region.
Trutnev said the Chita Region has one of the highest rates of illegal timber exports in Russia. He said a large number of dead-end rail tracks leading into forests, used by poachers reselling illegal timber to China, could be seen from the air.
