The State Duma supported a bill on cutting down trees in the Baikal area

The State Duma Committee on Ecology has supported the proposal to adopt in the second reading a bill that would allow for continuous logging in the central ecological zone of Lake Baikal, where the forest has died. This was reported by Kommersant on December 4.

It is specified that the discussion of the document dragged on for more than two years. After the Russian government approved it in the summer, a group of scientists expressed concern to Russian President Vladimir Putin: they fear that the proposed amendments could provoke deliberate arson attacks on healthy forests for the purpose of subsequent logging and sale of timber. The Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation has assured that these concerns will be taken into account when making changes to the Forest Code.

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