Volumes of illegal forest logging in Russian Federation

The paper highlights problems related to illegal logging. Under review are issues linked to definition of illegallogging, data in illegal logging level according to official statistics and expert estimates in the Russian Federation.Problem of illegal logging term definition has a key role both for its identification, law enforcement and counter-measure system development. Wide range of insufficient offenses during logging of forests and trees and extensiveinterpretation of illegal logging is unsuitable in particular for forest product exporters to international markets. Withregard to its value legal liability taking into account lately established international practice of forest activity definition such logging should not be referred to illegal ones. In the Russian Federation there are 2 independent groups of assessments: official statistical data and expertassessmentsthatvarysubstantially. Conducted analysis of agency level statistical data proves that both in regions and the whole RF the official statistics does not reflect and cover sufficient offenses during logging.It was found that available sufficient foreign assessments of illegal logging in Russia are not based on own studies but rather on information of various environmental including foreign organizations. Such expert assessments ofillegal logging in Russia are based mainly on data that lack sufficient accuracy. Special research studies of this prob-lem is practically unavailable. It was found the Russian federation regions lack research based procedures to calculate timber needs for localcommunities including apartment heating. Official agency level statistical reporting data does not give a real pattern of forest timber resources utilization for local community needs. The paper gives detailed conclusions on conducted analysis that may enable improvement of illegal loggingcounteraction.