BELARUS INTRODUCES NEW TIMBER LICENSING RULES
New timber licensing rules came into force on January 1, 2006 in Belarus. In line with the Council of Ministers’ Resolution №1551 of December 27, 2005, which approved the new timber licensing rules, only legal entities can engage in this kind of activity.
Commenting on the document upon the request of BelTA, the chief of the main department for timber production and sales of the forestry ministry, Alexander Korbut, noted that the resolution enhances the requirements for forest operators. In particular, the licensees should have the equipment to perform main timber harvesting technological operations qualitatively and safely and also to apply technologies in timber transportation which do not damage the upper fertile layer of soil and forest reproduction.
Moreover, the list of requirements includes fire safety rules, rational forestry management, efficient utilization of raw wood including the use of wood chips and sawdust as fuel to produce heat energy.
To obtain a timber working license a claimant should have woodworking equipment, tools and devices to produce high-quality products meeting the state standards, a certificate of the state labour inspectorate department of the ministry of labour and social security on compliance of the equipment with all requirements in labour protection. For the first time a claimant should coordinate with the local authorities the issue on deployment of woodworking production on the territories they supervise.
According to Alexander Korbut, to get a license a claimant should submit to the forestry ministry the information on its staff (number and qualifications). The license is valid for five years. Before granting a license the forestry ministry should make sure a claimant can meet the license requirements.
In case the license holder violates the requirements during a year the forestry ministry is entitled to cancel the license. The gross violations feature the breaching of the fire safety rules entailing a fire and also felling or damaging the trees, selling the products containing radionuclides exceeding the permissible levels, violation of labour protection rules, the unavailability of the documents validating the legality of timer purchase. Alexander Korbut noted that harvesting of firewood by natural persons for their own needs, hewing of bushes alongside railways and motorways, oil pipelines and geodesic networks are not liable for licensing.
As for granting timber licenses to entrepreneurs, they should set up a commercial company having a status of the juridical entity and only then claim for a license. All the abovementioned should be done by July 1, 2006.
In 2003-2005 the forestry ministry granted some 1,580 timber licenses /369 - in 2005/. The majority of the licenses have been granted to the organizations of the forestry ministry, the concern Bellesbumprom, the defense ministry and the Presidential Property Management Department. Entrepreneurs account for some 20 per cent for the total. Requirements to the licensees have been toughened as 228 licenses were canceled and 133 suspended for various violations in 2005.
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Information support from the Republican Unitary Enterprise Belarusian News Agency
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