Experts: The Law on Roads on Lake Baikal is contrary to the Constitution and codes

Scientists opposed the law allowing continuous cutting on Lake Baikal under the pretext of expanding the Trans -Siberian Railway. The law signed by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin contradicts the amendments to the Constitution made from his submission, ecologists said.

“The adopted law on the abolition of state environmental expertise and cutting forests on Lake Baikal is contrary to the Forest Code of Russia, the Land Code and certain laws,” said Natalya Lukina, chairman of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences ( quote for Greenpeace).

The law on cutting is also contrary to the amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation on environmental protection, the coordinator of the international coalition of the River without Borders Evgeny Simonov is sure.

“The worst thing is that this law cancels environmental examination in all protected areas, regional and federal significance, not only in Baikal,” said Simonov. - Within the framework of one law, several important mechanisms have been canceled, which allowed to prevent environmental disorders in Lake Baikal and other natural areas. And the list of projects that will be given such bonds is not defined. ”

“They quickly voted for this law. And there are huge risks. These are risks not only for ecology, but also for civil rights. Here, the experience of the Sochi Olympiad is repeated again, when land plots were withdrawn in force, and people were deprived of the opportunity to defend their rights, ”said the State Duma of the State Duma, Aleksey Kurina.

The law, recall, allows until 2025 to transfer lands of the forest fund of the Baikal zone into the land of other categories, after which “continuing solid cuts” is allowed. The list of objects under which you can chop the forest will determine the Government of the Russian Federation, in which they assure that they should be related to the needs of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Baikal-Amur line.

The bill was approved by both the State Duma and the Council of People's Commissars. Putin signed it on July 31. The Irkutsk State Duma deputy from the Communist Party Mikhail Shchapovasked the speaker of the SF Valentin Matvienko to reject the law. According to him, in the Irkutsk region, the amendments adopted in two days without a wide discussion caused a resonance: “Hundreds of thousands of residents of the Baikalia expressed a negative position on this decision on social networks.

The Irkutsk senator Vyacheslav Markhaev also opposed the adoption of the law at the plenary meeting of the Council. He was supported by another Irkutsk senator, Sergey Brilka. He asked not to approve the law, but in the end he voted “for”. Buryat Senator Alexander Bartholomeev, abstained from voting by law, proposed to “monitor” deforestation near Baikal.

The petition , which requires stopping the deforestation in Lake Baikal, collected more than 143 thousand signatures by August 9. A flash mob with the slogans #SAVEBAIKAL and #SPEARMBAIKAL is also held on the Internet.

In addition, the concern of ecologists is also caused by the project of a new list of activities prohibited in the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory. According to Greenpeace, the text “states that the ban on economic activities on the banks of Baikal does not apply to investment projects implemented on the basis of acts of the federal government, as well as decrees, orders and instructions of the President of Russia.”

“If the project is adopted in this form, in the central ecological zone of the Baikal natural territory it will be possible to carry out anything if it is agreed by the government or approved by decrees, orders and even instructions of Vladimir Putin,” the environmentalists say .

The new list of also prohibited activities actually allows continuous sanitary cutting in the forests around Lake Baikal in the case of the introduction of emergency mode. An independent examination of the lawyer Maxim Krupsky showed that the draft resolution contains corruption factors.