RF welcomes international cooperation in forest protection - view

BEIJING, September 7 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia welcomes international
cooperation in protection of forests and participates actively in it,
deputy head of Russia's forestry federal agency Alexander Panfilov told
APEC's first meeting of forestry ministers here on Wednesday.
"The Russian Federation acknowledges great importance to the emerging
process of consolidating efforts of forestry community of the Asia-Pacific
region to solve urgent problems of its forests," he said. "For us, this
process is an integral part of the European process to protect forests in
Europe, and it is of no less importance."
Under the global climate changes, which are accompanied by natural
calamities, it is necessary to take more efforts to protect forests on any
continent.
"As for APEC, it would be useful to discuss coordination in the
framework of, for example, the Asia-Pacific Forest Partnership dialogues,"
he said stressing that "Russia realises its responsibility for the state
of world forest resources, as it possesses about a quarter of all world
forests."
Russia's Siberia and Far East regions have about 70 percent of all
forest-covered areas and deposits of industrial wood.
"This is exactly the Russian region which is focused on APEC markets,"
Panfilov continued. "Russian wood and products of its processing are in
demand in most countries of the world, including the APEC countries."
"It is hard to overestimate the economic, ecological and social roles
of forests," he added.
"This is why Russia joins actively international processes and
initiatives to preserve forests, permanently supporting resolutions of
practically all international forums on the subject."
Russia tries to use experience and expertise of other countries in its
national policies in forestry. This is first of all true regarding
improvement of the national responsibility for keeping forests,
implementation of forests' monitoring and certification programmes,
renewal and reproduction of forests, organisation of protected forests,
effective forestry legislation and others.
Panfilov mentioned several problems Russia is facing due to the scale
of forest areas it has. He named damaging natural calamities, for example,
fires.
"Fires of 2010 covered over one million of hectares of forests, and
many of them were trans-border," he said. "This is a disaster, which does
not have borders, and thus it should be handled jointly."
He stressed that in that matter Russia has been cooperating
successfully with China on the basis of the bilateral agreement on
cooperation in prevention of wildfires in border areas, which was signed
in 1995. the agreement is working and the two countries continue active
exchange of experience, he added.
"I would say that this cooperation is not only an option for Russia
and China, but a way for other countries," Panfilov said. "Russia will
always welcome international cooperation in this sphere."
China's President Hu Jintao spoke at APEC's first meeting of forestry
ministers, which opened on Tuesday. The initiative to organise such
meetings belongs to China. It was voiced at the 18th unofficial meeting of
APEC leaders, which took place in Japan in November of 2010.