Government Commission Approves Logging Near Lake Baikal
The government commission approved amendments to the law on Lake Baikal, which allow clear cutting of forests along the shores of the lake. The bill may soon be adopted by the State Duma.
Initial Parliamentary Approval and Broken Promises
The document has already passed the first reading in parliament two years ago, in July 2023. Due to criticism from environmental organizations and the scientific community, it was promised to be seriously finalized for the second reading. But, it seems, they did not finalize anything, but decided to go a different way.
Suppression of Environmental Opposition
Already in 2023, in the wake of criticism of the bill, Greenpeace* was banned in the country. And the Compass Foundation, created as a patriotic alternative to this organization, made a film about the need for logging.
Political Support for the Logging Initiative
In the winter of 2025, one of the lobbyists of the document, the head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, managed to get support for the idea from Vladimir Putin. He put a resolution “agreed” on the letter, in which logging was considered necessary to ensure the life of settlements on the coast of Lake Baikal.
Questionable Justifications for Logging
These arguments were cited by supporters of logging earlier. There were also more emotional ones: for example, that there was nowhere to bury people on Lake Baikal.
Scrutiny of Cemetery Expansion Plans
But if you put emotions aside and look at the additional materials to the bill, many questions arise.
Disproportionate Cemetery Projects
To begin with, let’s talk about those cemeteries. In the village of Shida, where 28 people live, with the help of clear cutting, the cemetery is planned to be expanded by 2 hectares – this is about 5000 graves. In Slyudyanka, where 19,000 people live, they want to increase the number of burials by 62,000. And even in the village of Shumikha, where no one lives at all, just in case, they want to expand the local cemetery by 1000 graves.
Concerns Over Road Construction and Resort Development
The bill also leaves the construction of roads: and which ones and in what quantities are unknown. Environmentalists fear that we are not talking about the reconstruction of existing roads to settlements (for this, clear cutting is not needed), but about the laying of new highways to the planned resorts. For example, last year, Cosmos Hotel Group (a structure of AFK Sistema) announced its desire to build a five-star hotel on the shores of the Baikal Bay of Bezymyannaya. To do this, it will be necessary to cut down about 400 hectares of forest, which is impossible to do now. But if the bill is adopted, it will be possible to build both the complex and the road to it.
Tourism as a Catalyst for Logging
Tourism in general can become the main driver of Baikal logging: for example, back in 2023, environmental journalists found out that the largest of the plots already planned for logging – 553 hectares – is adjacent to the Gora Sobolinaya resort, owned by Oleg Deripaska’s structures.
Suspected Resort Expansion
Probably, we are talking about the expansion of the resort.
Hidden Agendas and Growing Opposition
It is precisely such moments – when, under the guise of caring for residents, the interests of business or the completely incomprehensible expansion of cemeteries are promoted – that confuse opponents of the bill. But not only.
Ecological Consequences for Lake Baikal
Logging will inevitably lead to the degradation of the lake itself: there will be no forest, and the rains will begin to wash away organic matter into Lake Baikal, which means that the “blooming” of water will increase. Instead of clear, the Baikal water will become green, filled with harmful filamentous algae spirogyrae. This will be a disaster for living creatures: mollusks and gobies will suffer (they cannot live on the bottom areas covered with spirogyra), followed by the omul that feeds on gobies eggs, and after the omul – the Baikal seal.
Misuse of Sanitary Logging Practices
In addition, all of the above does not correlate well with the fact that clear cutting in accordance with the bill will affect only sick and dead trees. However, there are no forest pathology surveys that would show that the Baikal forests are sick. Moreover, salvage logging, which in theory is really a form of forest care, in practice often becomes a tool for its destruction: it is no coincidence that the largest illegal logging in the history of Russia is sanitary logging. In 2021, the companies of Irkutsk deputy Yevgeny Bakurov were caught cutting down 15,000 hectares of allegedly sick forest, which turned out to be healthy. A fine of 2 billion rubles was imposed, but the enterprises did not pay, starting bankruptcy proceedings.
Profits Over Protection
Environmentalists note that logging on Lake Baikal is very profitable for timber merchants, because we are talking about intact forests, that is, wood of the highest quality, near a large buyer – China.
Last Hopes for Opposition Efforts
The environmental and scientific community still hopes to beat off the amendments: the project “The Earth Concerns Everyone” calls for writing appeals to the speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin with an appeal to show integrity and prevent clear cutting on Lake Baikal. In 2023, Volodin really stated that there was no need to cut down the forest on the lake. But then there was no position of the government and Vladimir Putin. And whether the Chairman of the State Duma will go against them for the sake of preserving Lake Baikal is very doubtful.
Quizzes
