Dear Readers:
Today we turn to ecological issues in the context of the war. I have this piece by reporter Nikolai Storozhenko. His lead paragraph:
In recent years one can easily see the stunning differences between Russia and Ukraine, even from space. And we are not just talking about the illumination of cities. Satellite images show the total denudation of Ukraine, the destruction of her priceless natural asset: The forests. Who is covering up the massive cutting down of the Ukrainian forests, and why is the opposite process taking place with the Russian forests?
Russian President Putin raised this issue himself, in a meeting with patriotic youth organizations. The topic had turned to ecology. Putin accused the Kiev regime of stealing Ukraine’s natural wealth, namely whole swaths of the topsoil and also the forests.
“They are selling off their forests,” Putin stated. “At this rate the Carpathian Mountains will become completely bald.” Putin is right. It is clear [to scientists] that the forests are becoming denuded; this in spite of the legal ban since 2015 (!) on selling this lumber. So, why is this happening?
[yalensis: Vocabulary note: I am not sure which English word is the correct translation. I googled “lumber” and “timber“, and there is a lot of confusion about proper usage. We are talking about a kind of raw wood that is exported, maybe even just trunks of trees. I don’t think we are talking about wood that is already sawed into boards; but I could be wrong. Keep that in mind, please. I’ll continue to use the word lumber, with that understanding, that we are talking about wood that has not been processed very much.]
Roughly 16-17% of Ukraine is covered with forests. (Roughly 10 million square hectares.) That number is from 2001. Roll forward 20 years. Vladimir Boreiko is the Director of the Kiev Ecological-Cultural Center. In his publication, he analyzes the amount of cutting that took place between the years 2001 and 2016. During those years, Ukraine cut down 800,000 hectares of forest.
In the next period, 2017-2020, the number went up to 1,355,000 hectares. And those are only the official numbers. We would need to add an additional 219,000 hectares for illegal cutting (=poaching). How could this take place when there has been a ban since 2015?
In this sad story, as in all stories about the Ukraine, we have to go back 30 years to 1991. When Ukraine gained her independence, she inherited a flourishing forest. During the 30 years from 1961-1991, the Soviet Republic of Ukraine secured around 2 million additional hectares, due to Soviet conservation efforts. During her 30 years of independence, Ukraine has squandered that gain in forest that was achieved in the 30 years prior to independence.
Boreiko’s numbers are already outdated. Yet he was able to make the point that Ukraine’s problems with its forests are not limited to the Carpathian region. For example, of the 800,000 hectares cut, which he reported on, only 126,000 of those happened in the Carpathians. A much bigger area of cutting occurred in the Polesie region of Ukraine (in an arc around Kiev, to the the North). The two main Oblasts of this region are Zhitomir and Roven. And this is where most of the cutting is going on. In the decade of the 2010’s the problem was compounded by the poaching of amber. The search for amber harms the forests, due to the actions of the motorized pumps, which pulverize the soil; not to mention deliberate burning of the trees to get them out of the way. In 2020 forestry officials of 4 Oblasts (Kiev, Roven, Zhitomir, Volyn) reported that the mining of amber had destroyed up to 6,000 hectares of forest.
Moving to the South of Ukraine: There are not as many forests. However, there is the legendary Tsiuropinsky Forest in the Kherson region. This is the largest man-made forest on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. It comprises 100,000 square hectares. People started to plant this forest back in Tsarist times, in the 19th century.
Currently the Kiev regime tries to blame Russia and the war for all the damage happening to this legendary forest: the Ukrainian info-sphere describing the harmful activities of Russian soldiers, who dig trenches and ruin the soil by dragging heavy artillery. However, the Ukrainians themselves share a lot of the blame: For the past 5-7 years they have been ripping the place up pretty well by themselves, quartering Right Sektor and other militant groups during the “Anti-Terrorist Operation”. These “patriotic veterans” have destroyed, not only trees, but also people. In 2018 they attacked ecology activist Yekaterina Gandziuk, who had exposed to the press their illegal cuttings. Two of the attackers were members of the Right Sektor movement.
Next we turn to the theme of exports of lumber, both legal and illegal. Starting in January 2022 Russia banned exports of its own raw lumber. This ban had been in the works for at least 15 years. It was preceded by intermediary steps, increasing export tariffs and so on. [yalensis: No further information is provided on the reasons for the Russian ban. I assume it has something to do with ecological concerns. Also, maybe, an incentive to Russian manufacturing, to process the lumber into finished products themselves.]
Ukraine did not impose a similar ban. However, even earlier than the Russian Federation (2015) they had imposed a 10-year moratorium on the export of raw lumber. The European Union was actually upset about this and took the Ukraine to Arbitrage Court. In its judgement, the Arbitrator advised Ukraine to amend its moratorium in such a way as to satisfy the demands of the EU. However, this issue remained open, right up until the start of the Special Military Operation.
Sadly, the war has given the EU a chance to get its hands on Ukrainian lumber all the same. In August there was talk of taking Ukrainian lumber as payment for all the weapons deliveries.
Moratorium or no moratorium, recall that, as noted above, Ukrainian forests continued to be chopped down at a steady rate in the years 2017-2020. And all of this raw lumber went straight to export.
During the second half of Petro Poroshenko’s Presidency, Euro-Commissars kept arriving in Kiev demanding an end to the moratorium, or at least a softening of the moratorium in their favor. [yalensis: If they weren’t getting the lumber, then who was? I don’t understand…] The Europeans were miffed because, what with the Russian ban, the price of lumber had shot up. And the Ukrainian officials and businessmen cunningly took advantage of this situation: They were getting rich on illegal cutting of the forests. [yalensis: Once again, who were they selling it to?]
The reporter concludes his piece with a paean to the Russian ban. Unlike the Ukrainian moratorium, the Russian one is actually working and doing what it is supposed to do: Rebuild the forests. During the years 2009-2021 the Russian forest has increased in size by 4,300,000 hectares. This result is so good, that even the Norwegians admitted it.
Why is the Russian ban successful, and the Ukrainian moratorium not so much? There is no deep secret here. For starters, it is more profitable to trade in finished products than in raw materials. Secondly, it helps when a government is an actual government, and not just a criminal band of poachers, led by veterans of the so-called Anti-Terrorist Operation.
Awful Avalanche 
Who was buying the stolen wood? My guess is the EU, via “middlemen”. I imagine the reason they want the moratorium removed is probably: a) to get a simpler, official, supply chain (instead of dealing with criminals), and b) to drive down the price (by increasing the legitimate supply).
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That’s a good guess. I just really don’t know for sure.
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Interestingly, similar problem with forests exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Just before Covid came along I visited western part of that country and happen to talk to a Forestry warden. Just as in more distant past, these people looked after forests. These were owned by the country known as Yugoslavia. Not much of it was in private possession and were managed very well with emphasis on sustainable exploitation. When wars of 1990’s ended the newly independent state of B & H was in dire straits with virtually no economic activity from year to year. First demand by the West was, privatise everything. This got nowhere as much of what survived as industry was lifeless with no working capital to get re-animated. Guess what, the western advisers took aim at country’s vast forests and demanded that it be privatised. I believe that it was eventually not sold off but I could be wrong. In any case, forestry management was still in place but with fewer powers. Essentially, there appeared various entrepreneurs that were given / sold right to cut trees and policing of this became next to impossible with forestry wardens being few in numbers. I visited a retired school teacher I knew and she complained bitterly about wood cutters not only destroying forest cover near her home but also damaging the unsealed road that she had to walk to get to nearby village. Being a Bosnian Serb, she no longer lived there but had moved to Serbia in 1990’s. She would visit her old house and live there during summer months. This was not isolated case. Many others like her lived some place else and would occasionally come to check on their old homes, that is, when these were still standing. I visited the town of Bosanska Krupa which is now mostly populated by Muslims. It was in last days of month of August and the town was just very lifeless. Not many people and not much activity. I have been there in 1980’s and the place was alive. Now, the only time streets are busy is when all the former (Muslim) residents return from Western Europe to spend their holidays there. Most of the former Serb population lived in surrounding villages but the working age segment has moved elsewhere and what remains is people in advanced years that cannot start a new life some place else.
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Btw, just to add, this area of western B & H and adjoining Croatia is referred to as “Krajina” – The Borderlands, same meaning as term “Ukraine”.
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Thanks for that fascinating story, MrDomingo. Another sad result of what happens when NATO breaks up viable sovereign nations and insists on privatizing what should be public resources.
This is NATO’s plan for Russia as well: To break it up into smaller, bite-sized chunks which they can control and rob its natural resources.
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Divide and conquer, a strategy that is as old as the concept of war itself. In all these conflicts in recent times, when US took aim at some country, US has sought to empower segments of that society that they can use to subvert and eventually conquer that country. In China, its the Uighur Muslims, in Myanmar its the Karen minority, in Vietnam, it was the Hmong mountain tribes, In Yugoslavia, it was the resurrected Nazi loving nationalists in Croatia or the Muslims in other parts. Now Bosnian Muslims are a nationality, the Bosniaks, that in reality were originally Croatian and Serbian Christians that converted to Islam.
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Yup, that’s exactly how they do it. It’s a neat trick, and it works almost every time.
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It is not only the USA or the Western Europeans, it is always (in every country) the ruling class that governs society by means of private ownership of all material things. Forcing someone is one way, the other is buying someone, which is sometimes called “corruption” and sometimes “lobbying” (usually depends on the occasion).
What happened at the end of the 1980s in Yugoslavia, as everywhere in Eastern Europe and also in the USSR, was that the majority of the ruling upper class, i.e. the leaders of the state-supporting parties, became more and more envious (materially) of the ruling class in the West. But this made them ‘for sale’ to all ‘interested parties’ from the West.
The argument each time was that a (state) planned economy does not work and privatisation would be the precondition for ‘economic efficiency’. The essential problem is that the majority of the population in the West (including those who have to do the real work for as little pay as possible) and even in Russia still believe in this fairy tale today.
As long as nothing changes, even good-natured leaders like Vladimir Putin will have to take outdated concepts like nationalism or religion out of the mothballs in order to create something like unity among the population for at least ‘higher goals’.
The ‘advantage’ of the West in general is that in societies made up of individuals competing in everyday life, it can always find someone who is dissatisfied with ‘their government’ and therefore ‘receptive’ to material benefits. People like Kasparov or Nawalny are everywhere.
In this respect, it is also illusory to ‘denazify’ a country but not to change the principles of the economy, which is first and foremost about making profit. This basis of bourgeois society, doing everything just for the sake of profit, is the Brechtian “womb that is still fertile”.
By the way, a considerable amount of sawn timber from Ukraine (and also Belarus) ends up in Germany and the UK where, as far as I know, most of it is processed into various forms of firewood, e.g. so-called ‘pellets’, which are burnt in modern wood-burning stoves. Obviously this is a very lucrative business for the companies (or their owners) involved. At least in Germany, such wood stoves are still considered ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘sustainable’.
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Thanks, Samson, that is an excellent comment. Regarding capitalism and private property, etc.
It’s also instructive to learn about Ukrainian timber ending up in Germany as fuel for wood stoves. I think that answers one of the mysteries here. Germany is suffering from a shortage of natural gas, so many people have to use wood to heat their homes. I wonder how much of the Ukrainian wood goes there legally, and how much is smuggled under the table, so to speak.
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At least in Germany, this kind of modern pellet heaters was actually introduced under the label “climate protection” or “sustainability,” long before “the evil Russians” were accused of cutting gas and oil supplies. The state subsidised this because the supposedly “fossil fuels” would be finite and wood is a so-called “renewable resource.”
And of course this kind of heating was built into private houses of the middle and upper class, the working class lives mainly for rent and pays an invoice to the owner for the heating.
In which region of this world something grows, capitalists have always been indifferent as long as a profitable business is possible. Almost all flowers that can be bought in German stores are purchased by the wholesalers via auctions in Amsterdam (this was once told to me by a Dutch florist who operates more than 10 shops in East Germany). Most plants grow in Kenya and Equador and come to Europe by air freight. And the reason therefore is obviously clear: the workers there are much cheaper than in Europe. I have no idea how many small nurseries (not only in Germany) were abandoned in the last decades, because the owners had no chance (anymore) against retail chains.
I also bought potatoes (years ago, in winter), on the packaging was under country of origin Egypt. On the other hand, more and more fields with solar cells are being added here. I assume that this is more profitable for the ownerss of the soils than farming, because I have never heard of farmers being expropriated because solar cells or wind turbines are to be set up.
But that’s the normal course of business under capitalism, nobody needs to be particularly “evil” or “greedy”. And that the little ones are “eaten” by the big ones is obviously the course of the world.
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Why would they treat the trees better than their own people, which are hastily conscripted for suiccide operations on the front?
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Alas! the trees don’t have a voice, either…
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Putin as Russia’s answer to Teddy Roosevelt…
…no wonder the 3LA’s hate him so much, they got their start with that revitalized Dem-icon, World Famous Racist and Hitler’s favorite American President >>> Woodrow Wilson <<<
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For language usage about logging (the activity of cutting down trees), logs or timber (the raw products) and lumber ( processed wood that would be used to build anything from a shipping pallet to a house) it is a morass even for native English speakers. You do not want to learn the difference between a “long cord” and a “face cord”. Cord has nothing to do with rope or string.
Timber is closer to what you are describing than is the finished product, lumber. In English, we might use six different words for what you are describing.
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Thanks for that info, John. So, maybe I should have used the word “logs” or “timber” instead of “lumber” in my translation.
I reckon you need a degree in Forestry to understand all the specialized vocabulary!
Now, just for fun: Here is how a Barn Raising Dance is supposed to look after the lumberjacks have done their work, and all the boards are nailed together to make a barn:
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Only in Hollywood movies can a dance look so well choreographed.
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I never saw the stage version, but from what I understand, the dance sequences in “7 Brides” were spectacular. Although I am sure not quite as perfect as above, because they wouldn’t be able to edit out the mistakes. But what a lot of action going on: dancing and log-rolling and tumbling routines, not to mention axe-throwing. it’s awesome! I have watched this movie on youtube about 5 times, and it never gets old. (The 7 brothers, by the way, are Lumberjacks, which is why it’s relevant, although I don’t need an excuse.)
I wish I could go back in time and watch Russ Tamblyn dance in his prime. He was the complete package: Trained in classical ballet, he could perform any kind of dance or gymnastics move.
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As you seem to like dance shows, I can point you to a YouTube channel, “La Milonga Del Treno”: https://www.youtube.com/@lamilongadeltreno/videos
The title is Italian for a tango event with Argentinian term “Milonga”. Apparently a regular Milonga event was/is held at the Milano train station.
Someone took segments of old movies with dance scenes and matched a Tango piece that was suitable, thus substituting the sound track. Now you have to sort videos by newest first and then go to set of videos from 9-10 years back. More recent videos are more of a mix that does not focus on Tango. To my mind, these are amazing to watch. and have a look at following examples:
The last one, “Saraghina Rumba” is not a Tango but good. All these old actors used to be on TV in 1970’s when I was much younger but they don’t get shown on TV any more where I live.
BTW, for some pieces, you can find reference to original movie and after checking a few to see original content, I like the Tango treatment much more.
Enjoy!
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Thanks! I do like to watch good dancing.
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I can only imagine that when you google ‘Ukrainian timber’, you get Zelensky and friends singing ‘Oh, I’m a lumber jack and I’m ok’ from that Monty Python skit.
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+ 1
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Zelensky:
“I cut down trees. I wear high heels,
Suspenders, and a bra….”
And then I play the piano,
With my you-know-wha!
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When you have government that is government, not just gangs of predators and enablers. That says it all. A countries forests and other renewables are a good sign of the government situation.
In Brazil they had a good conservation program protecting the Amazon. This Bolsonaro managed to destroy it in only 4 years.
Here in Canada, it is a distinctly Canadian situation. Federal government mandates forest conservation, corrupt provincial governments refuse to enforce it, the gyppo loggers go wild. They use very destructive logging methods which make it hard for the forest to grow back.
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i’ll confirm the other canadian above’s take on our issues as i was going to mention how lumber prices here were insane for a while and that conflicted with the CONSTANT annoying construction and urban sprawl that passes for “economic activity” here. (just some anecdotal perspective: people are moving from all over the country to calgary because a medium size house is “only” $650k.)
i can’t speak for the other provinces (though i hear it’s the same in ontario) but alberta and especially calgary are basically the lawless wild west for slimy developers and the useless provincial and local “politicians” who i’m assuming get juicy kickbacks from said slime. with the strong ukrainian nazi/western canada connection maybe some of that lumber ended up here but it’s just as likely it went to europe and probably even china as they had/have a similar ongoing real estate bubble and will get material anywhere they can.
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Ukraine : a hell of a country!!!™
When the Mafia-cum-junta from Kiev is kicked out of Ukraine (this year?) we’ll discover they’ve sold about everything that could be sold in their country.
Ukraine brings a new meaning to the expression “failed state”.
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I know! It breaks my heart. I think the only solution is for the new Ukrainian government (when it happens) to reject ALL the treaties and commitments made by the current Kiev regime. It’s the only way to get out of debt and make a fresh start.
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When I was in East Asia, I was told that most of the logs were sent to Japan [to make crates & sh*t].
In North America, the logging industry refers to its workers as ‘Lumberjacks’ not ‘Timberjacks.’ I’d take it from there :o]
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Remember the “aliens invade!” movie “Independence Day”? The modus operandi of the scaly aliens was to go to a planet, kill off any advanced inhabitants and strip that world of anything they could get their tentacles on. Ukraine is there, dude… It’s also part of the “disaster capitalism” model that Naomi Klein wrote about. Rape a nation when it’s down and controls have disappeared. Just like what happened when the USSR collapsed and the capitalistaliens moved in.
I was reading the transcript of a podcast (because I’d rather use my eyes than my ears — I get more depth of info that way) with a well-known economist named Michael Hudson and another woman who I did not know named Radikha Desai. She made a point about the laws that _elensky and the collapsing Ukronazi regime are making, to sell off Ukraine’s land/public resources to outside corporate control. I had wondered why they’d bother to change the laws, since the political entity (Ukraine’s Rada) that was passing the legislation was not likely to exist for long. (At least not in its current form as the governing force of a country known as “Ukraine.” Maybe, just maybe, the Rada will be in charge of whatever is left after the stomping stops.) Desai’s point is that the law changes will give a claim to the privateers that THEY own the stuff in Ukraine, even the parts that will be under Russian control such as Crimea and the Donbass.
One supposed “peace” (aka “surrender”) proposal that I have seen trial-ballooned is for the Westies to say “OK, Russia can have Crimea/Donbass, but the ‘legal’ ownership structure approved by the Rada will still apply.” That would be a non-starter for Russia, but it’s a starting point for negotiations (aka “haggling.”) It would also give the corporate raiders a claim to those assets in world courts. They might not be in charge of a bunch of grain fields, for example, but they would be able to go to the World Trade Organisation and say “We demand the money that’s been paid for the grain that’s grown on ‘our’ fields.” And if it’s not paid, the WTO or other West-controlled agencies can sanction Russia, or impose fines on the companies that are buying the grain that corpos want. Which would make many businesses think twice about buying the stuff. That’s the point — a chilling effect, extortion, “lawfare” in the business world. Things like this log-hogging are one of many aspects of the corporipoff scheme.
We have met the “Independence Day” aliens, and they is us!
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The tentacle aliens were more honest about their schemes. They just grabbed everything with their slimy suckers and didn’t bother to pass phony laws!
As for the “legal” raiding schemes, I don’t think Russia can win at that game, especially if it goes to Arbitration Court of London. Russia will find herself ruled against by some idiot judge in a powdered wig, and have to turn over the Crimean peninsula to Hunter Biden Development, LLC.
I think Russia’s best tactic would be to deny any recognition of Westie courts or institutions. They could get together with China, maybe, and just make up new international courts and organizations. And then it’s basically, “If you want this, come and try to take it.”
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Oh masters of Ukrainia…you got into bed with vipers and now your people writhe in the final throes of the venom you chose.
https://sonar21.com/whats-in-hunter-bidens-wallet/
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Good article. It shows what the greaseball logging brigade attempts to do worldwide. Give a man a chainsaw, a rural life, no understanding whatsoever of silviculture and zero desire to learn anyway, and any and all forests are threatened everywhere. Add in shady buyers of the “product”, and no wonder the world is in the dead-end ecological state we’re in. IKEA is now denuding the Baltic states’ lumber for Billy bookcases from what I hear lately. Lingonberry jam preservers/meatball-making Swedish people in a company actually owned by the Dutch care nothing about the environment really. It’s designed that way to avoid rrsponsibility — here is a direct quote from the first sentence of IKEA’s wiki page: “IKEA is a Swedish multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands”. Wrap your head around that nonsense statement! Who do you go after if corporate malfeasance occurs?
So yalensis: What is a square hectare — the metric version of a cubic acre? You use the term twice and it is of course meaningless unless we live in a four dimensional world. Reality didn’t prevent Pontiac from using the “vacuuming cubic acres of air” theme for its fuel-swilling 7 litre V8s in the ’60s but that was Marketing Man, an alien species all of its own.
The timber vs lumber sobriquet goes back hundreds of years, and we can probably blame the British for the confusion. Thus, although we all tend to look at an untouched forest scene and call it a timber-stand, the Brits call a construction wood-selling place a timberyard, while in North America we call it a lumberyard. But then the Brits completely lose the plot and speak of timber houses, when we call them wood(en) houses here in North America. I mean wood is what timber and lumber is made of, but try telling a Brit that. Having myself been born in Blighty, emigrated to Canada at age 11, returned to Blighty for a five year post-grad stint in London until 1974, the differences in words and language use between North America and the UK have always fascinated me,
In 1988, I hired a professional forester to help us control tree growth under and over electric powerlines to minimize power outages This gentleman was a very bright guy, and his father was a Forestry professor at UBC at the time. When someone actually knows what they’re talking about and can explain clearly, the issues with forest management in the rapacious clear-cutting North American style become obvious very quickly. I and many others learnt a lot fast. And while he was here before being poached/head-hunted, we advanced rapidly in vegetation management, using a scheme he devised. Plus, he could stand up at a town or village meeting and explain everything to rurals in a very convincing way, because it was obvious he knew what he was talking about — he even showed them how to properly sharpen and dress a chainsaw’s teeth. Most backwoodsmen didn’t have a clue at that basic task. So even the greaseballs listened to him. Then our company was neoliberally privatized, so bugger spending a nickel that wasn’t forced on them by regulators. Things went downhill fast. The big boys want money in their pocket like, now. Never trust a monopolist or someone wanting to be one. Bezos and Zuckerberg type twats exemplify mentally-deranged plutocratic oligarchs as we all know. But a lot of quieter sociopaths run a multitude of companies, leeching off a country’s sovereign natural wealth at essentially no cost to them. Bold as brass and twice as evil — the naked would-be monopolist.
So now we have the predatory Blackrock, ConAgra, Cargill types buying up “Ukraine” land at bargain prices offered by that racist twerp Ze. That the five oblasts which voted to be independent/join Russia are still part of Ukraine is a legal fictional reality in the West. It indeed raises the spectre of Western business people trying to cash out from Russia from their “Ukraine” holdings, for supposed lost profits. That sort of thing is de-rigueur in neoliberal “free trade deals”, where a nameless tribunal of spooks decide awards in trade disputes at a level above the Supreme Courts of the land and existing in-country law. The paradise of rip-off artistes has been achieved and bugger the people! Canada has been ripped by US corporations under NAFTA for years using these overlord “tribunals”. Lost profits, sob the wounded “investors”, as they disregard existing environmental law all the way to the bank.
Still, when Russia physically controls the existing five former oblasts for certain and also in their legal system, plus likely even more of “Ukraine” after they win, I’m sure VVP and his comrades and Russians in general will take great delight in telling Blackrock’s president et al to go fly kites, because they’re not going to pay these privateers for their “lost investments” in “Ukrainian” land. Risk was always part of the original capitalist system — you bet on a good outcome for your investment. You won some, you lost some. But what if you could gerrymander the system and win every time? Nowadays, these “free-trade” deals are structured so that risk is avoided and the money-grubbers make out no matter what. Well, these f^^ckers have met their match in Russia. And I chortle at the monetary predicament these greedy pigs will find themselves in.
Maybe the timber will grow back anew in “Ukraine” when these parasites of Western capital are sent packing. I surely hope so.
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That “square hectare” thing was a mistake on my part. In the piece the reporter just wrote, like “10 hectares”, and I thought I was correcting him by adding the word “square”. Because I thought a hectare was a linear measurement like a meter, didn’t realize it already included the concept of “square”, just like “acre” does, duh!
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