The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved a forestry reform strategy for the period until 2022.

The decision was made at a meeting on Wednesday.

According to the text of the strategy, which has been sent to Interfax-Ukraine, the total area of forest areas that belong to the forest fund of Ukraine is 10.4 million hectares. The timber stock in the forests is estimated at 2.1 billion cubic meters. The annual volume of harvesting liquid wood from all types of loggings in the State Forest Agency is about 16 million cubic meters.

The document says that the potential reserves and opportunities of Ukrainian forests are large and, in the opinion of specialists and international experts, are not used in full. Considering the increase in the area of mature and overripe plantings in the Ukrainian forests, it is objective for the coming years to increase logging.

"In Ukraine, only 0.9% of the stock is cut down during the year, while in Switzerland annual logging is 1.9%, the Czech Republic - 2.4%, Finland - 2.8%, Great Britain and Belgium - 3% and 3.1% respectively," the strategy says.

Among the forestry problems addressed by the strategy is the imperfection of the forest management system, the significant amount of illegal logging, corruption in forestry, the difficulty of obtaining documents for the use of forest lands, the imperfect mechanism for the sale of unprocessed timber, the unsolved legislative initiatives to protect forests, the complex prosecuting for illegal logging and a lack of economic incentives for deepening the wood processing.

In connection with the above-mentioned problems, there is a need to develop a strategy for reforming forestry.

To implement this strategy, the government plans to create a forest inspectorate service, introduce electronic timber turnover for all permanent forest users, conduct aerospace photography, simplify the conditions for obtaining permits for permanent forest users of forest land, introduce a unified procedure for the sale of unprocessed timber, toughen punishment for violations in the industry, and clearly distribute the powers between law enforcement agencies for recording and collecting proofs.

In addition, the document provides for the introduction of mechanisms for prompt response to forest health problems, the development of a state compensation program for the use of environmental conservation technologies and a government program to stimulate the activities of forestry entities.

The measures will be implemented at the expense of national and local budgets, forest users' funds and funds of international organizations and foreign investors.

The government obliged the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food jointly with central and local executive authorities to design a draft action plan for the implementation of the approved strategy and submit it within two months.