The Lepel Inter-district Inspectorate for the Protection of Fauna and Flora reminds

Administrative, criminal, and civil liability is established for violations of forest legislation. An indicative list of actions that entail liability for violation of legislation on the protection and use of forests is provided for in Article 97 of the Forest Code.

The Lepel Inter-district Inspectorate for the Protection of Fauna and Flora reminds:

The Code of Administrative Offences establishes administrative liability for the following offences:

• Violation of the right of state ownership of forests (Art. 10.3);
• Violation of the procedure for using logging areas (Art. 15.21);
• Illegal destruction or damage to tree, shrub, or other vegetation in forests (Art. 15.22);
• Violation of forest use rules (Art. 15.23);
• Violation of the rules for the use of forest fund land plots (Art. 15.24);
• Damage to hayfields or pastures on forest fund lands, unauthorised haymaking (Art. 15.25);
• Unauthorised collection for industrial purposes, destruction or damage of forest litter or living ground cover (Art. 15.28);
• Violation of fire safety requirements in forests or peatlands (Art. 15.29);
• Forest pollution (Art. 15.30);
• Destruction or damage of information signs on forest fund lands (Art. 15.31).

Officials entrusted with the functions of state forest protection are authorised to draw up protocols on administrative offences provided for by the specified articles.

Criminal offences include:

• Forest pollution committed within one year after the imposition of an administrative penalty for the same offence, or which caused intentional or negligent damage of a large scale (Art. 275 of the Criminal Code);
• Negligent destruction or damage of a forest, which caused damage of a particularly large scale (Art. 276 of the Criminal Code);
• Illegal logging or damage to trees and shrubs in Group I forests to the point of cessation of growth, which caused damage of a large or particularly large scale (Art. 277 of the Criminal Code).

In the named articles of the Criminal Code, damage is considered substantial if its amount is eighty or more times the size of the base amount, and particularly substantial if it is two hundred and fifty or more times the size of the base amount established on the day the crime was committed.

Alongside administrative and criminal liability, civil liability is applied to offenders. Legal entities and individuals who have caused damage or destruction to individual sections of the forest fund or forest resources, their pollution with wastewater, chemical and radioactive substances, waste, damage or destruction of signs, directional signs and other objects of forestry purpose, as well as those who have committed other violations of forest legislation, are obliged to compensate for the damage caused in the amounts and manner established by law. The Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus "On Material Liability for Damage Caused to Forestry" establishes a tariff method for calculating the amount of damage caused by forest offenses. Illegally obtained timber and other forest products are subject to seizure and transfer to the legal entity managing the forest economy. If it is impossible to seize illegally obtained timber and other forest products, their value shall be recovered. Damage is compensated voluntarily or through court proceedings.

For example, a legal entity in the Lepel district transported its timber by road from an industrial warehouse without accompanying documents. The inspection officers drew up an administrative report. The legal entity was subjected to an administrative penalty in the form of a fine amounting to 2,100,000 rubles. Timber in the volume of 8.49 m3 was seized for the benefit of the state.