By Mark Burnett, Natalia Dronova, Maren Esmark, Steve Nelson, Asle Rønning, and Vassily Spiridonov

The high northern latitudes support rich biological diversity, including expansive fish stocks, large colonies of seabirds, benthic communities, and a wide variety of marine mammals. Arctic biodiversity and biological productivity is of great international economic importance. About 70 per cent of the world’s total white fish supply comes from arctic waters. This marine resource is also extremely significant to arctic regional and coastal communities. Illegal fishing for Atlantic cod and Alaska pollock in the Arctic threatens the health of these globally important fisheries and their resilience to climate change. It undermines all efforts to build sustainable fisheries management regimes – a pressing objective in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at twice the global average. Extensive data for the Barents Sea contrasts with the limited information available about estimated illegal fishing in the Russian Far East. As well as providing alarming illustrations of how widespread IUU fishing can become when adequate measures are not taken, the Arctic also gives encouraging examples of how IUU fishing can be greatly reduced. In the Barents Sea region, Norway and Russia have cooperated on fisheries management for several decades. Experience working together has resulted in concrete measures to control, regulate and monitor fishing. These measures have borne fruit recently with the reduction in illegal fishing in the Barents Sea. This achievement shows how coordinated efforts among governments, industry and non-governmental organisations can make a real difference in stopping criminal fishing activities. The current challenge is to keep up the momentum, learn from positive experiences, and leverage our commitment and knowledge to expand the fight against illegal fishing.

Oslo, Norway: World Wildlife Fund, International Arctic Programme, 2008. 52p

By Alexander Fedorov, Alexei Babko, Alexander Sukharenko, Valentin Emelin

Transnational organized environmental crime is a rapidly growing threat to the environment, to revenues from natural resources, to state security and to sustainable development. It robs developing countries of an estimated US$ 70 billion to US$ 213 billion annually or the equivalent of 1 to 2 times global Official Development Assistance. It also threatens state security by increasing corruption and extending into other areas of crime, such as arms and drug smuggling, and human trafficking. Russia possesses enormous forest resources (over 83 billion m³), representing a quarter of the world’s timber reserves. However, illegal logging and forest crime result in enormous monetary losses from the state budget According to data from the Russian Federal Forestry Agency (Rosleshoz), in 2014 alone there were 18,400 cases of the illegal logging of forest plantations—a total volume of 1,308,400 m³—with an estimated value of 10.8 billion rubles. However other estimates vary from 10-20% (Prime Minister’s office) to 50% (Prosecutor General’s office) of total timber harvest. While there has been a reduction in the amount of illegal logging in some regions of the Russian Federation, illegal logging has increased in other regions. Presently, no effective methods have been adopted for assessing the amount of illegal logging in the Russian Federation. The damage caused to forests is not only economic, but also ecological. The report reveals the scale of illegal logging in Russia based on the best available, most up-to-date, expert data. It is hoped that governments will take note and take action.

Arendal, Norway: GRID-Arendal, 2017, 38p.

By Tian Yanfang

Since the end of the 1990s, the Sino-Russian border regions have witnessed a dramatic, unprecedented increase in cross-border timber trade that has made Russia the largest log supplier for China's expanding wood industry sector. Driving factors include: severe constraints in China's domestic wood supplies, the availability of rich forest resources in the Russian Far East and Siberia, liberalised trade policies and demand from both domestic and European, Japanese and US markets for low cost Chinese wood products. This study provides a contextual description and analysis of the cross-border timber trade boom and the actors involved. It examines the current challenges faced by a largely inefficient Russian forestry sector and decentralised Russian forest administration in the context of illegal logging and unsustainable forestry practices, both widely viewed as having reached serious dimensions.

This study focuses on the involvement and role of Chinese actors throughout the supply chain. Chinese companies have entered the Russian forestry sector, introduced greater efficiency and proved competitive. This involvement has also opened doors for Chinese actors to inadvertently or intentionally participate in illegal activities throughout the supply chain. In addition to timber harvesting, Chinese actors are involved as intermediaries in the commercial log depots and control the wholesale timber market in some parts of Russia. Chinese actors have also increasingly invested in wood processing in Russia, partly in response to the adjustment of the Russian export tax on logs. Most recently, there has been a trend towards vertical integration for Chinese companies, with intermediaries and wood importers attempting to extend their business to every node of the trading network. On the Chinese side of the border, preferential tax policies and infrastructure investment have spurred a rapid development of the timber processing industry with private sector processing mills replacing state-owned timber processing factories.

Hayama, Japan, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, 2008. 58p.

By Anatoly Lebedev

The preservation and sustainable use of Siberian and Russian Far East (RFE) forests is of global importance for a number of reasons. Yet, these forests, which are the traditional environments of many endangered species and indigenous tribes, are now supplying timber to nearby regions and countries that have largely destroyed their own forests. The vast forests of Asian Russia act as reservoirs for oneseventh of the global carbon pool. Russia holds 75 percent of the carbon stored by all of the world’s boreal forests, such that deforestation, after fossil fuel combustion, is the second largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in Russia, as it is worldwide. Properly conserved, Russian forests act as a critical green “lung” for the Earth, second to Brazil’s Amazon. The atmospheric carbon sink process, however, occurs much more slowly in taiga than in the tropical rainforest, as does the process of carbon exportation from organic changes. As a result, this source of carbon storage, after broad-scale commercial logging or forest fires, will also be more slowly restored to its initial function than would be tropical forests.. All across Russia, the past five years have witnessed a revival in domestic timber production, following the collapse of the 1990s, and a drive to achieve the level of volumes extracted during the Soviet period. In the RFE's Primorye Krai (Province), for example, roundwood production rose from 2.2 million cubic meters in 1998 to 3.3 million cubic meters in 2002 and to 3.7 million cubic meters in 2003, and seems to be increasing further under the pressure of growing Chinese and domestic demand. The same trend is exhibited in Khabarovski Krai. Its roundwood production grew from 5 million cubic meters in 1999 to approximately 6.5 million cubic meters in 2002. Iin both Krais there is a clear trend to harvest in formerly reserved, inaccessible, or roadless areas. Not only is the industry, then, launching a sort of "last attack" on formerly used, exhausted, and burnt forests, it is also aggressively pursuing the intact ones, which are already suffering from illegal operations. Expansion of logging and processing capacity over the last 3 to 4 years has not demonstrated a new and improved strategy, but, rather, has resulted in the poor condition found in the remaining commercially available forests and in the constant reduction of timber quality and price.

Washington, DC: Forest Trends, 2005. 48p.

By D.Y. Smirnov, (ed.), A.G. Kabanets, E.A. Lepeshkin, and D.V. Sychikov

Illegal logging of valuable temperate hardwoods has reached crisis proportions in the Russian Far East. Comparative analysis conducted by WWF Russia shows that from the period 2004-2011 the volume of Mongolian oak (the most valuable hardwood species) logged for export to China exceeded authorized logging volumes by 2-4 times. Much of this illegal logging takes place in the habitats of the Amur tiger and leads to their degradation. The materials included in this report are pertinent in the context of new legislation in the European Union, United States and other countries aimed at the exclusion of illegally sourced wood products, given that a signifi cant proportion of the illegal timber logged in the Russian Far East enters such markets in the form of Chinese-manufactured furniture and flooring. This report is applicable for use by public forest agencies, forest industry, NGOs, students and academics and all those who are not indifferent to the fate of Russian forests.

Moscow: World Wildlife Fund Russia, 2013. 43p.