Patrushev announced the allocation of 64 billion rubles for the development of forestry in 2024

The Russian government has allocated 64 billion rubles for the development of forestry in 2024. This was announced on April 17 by Dmitry Patrushev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, at a meeting on the results of forestry development at the Rossiya National Center.

"Russia accounts for a fifth of the world's forest reserves. Thanks to this, our country makes a great contribution to ensuring global environmental well-being. For several years now, more forests have been appearing in Russia than are being eliminated. This is facilitated by the activities implemented by the Federal Forestry Agency, attracting business. In 2024, forest restoration exceeded the area of felled and dead trees by one and a half times. We must continue to adhere to the set vector," the Deputy Prime Minister said.

Patrushev noted that the government continues to provide support to forest users, including partial exemption from lease payments for 2023 for enterprises in the Northwestern Federal District. Separate measures are also provided for wood processors.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that in 2024, timber harvesting increased by more than 6 million cubic meters and it is expected that in 2025 the figure will exceed 200 million cubic meters.

"The forest complex is a solid base for the relevant industry, an important component of the economy of most regions. Therefore, it is very important that the planned recovery of the industry after the imposition of sanctions continued in 2024. The previously taken support measures contributed to the rise in many ways," the Deputy Prime Minister stressed.

According to Patrushev, since the beginning of the implementation of the Ecology national project, the total area of new forest plantations has reached 8 million hectares. These activities will continue within the framework of the new project "Environmental Well-being", for the implementation of which over 16 billion rubles are provided until 2030.

He also noted that almost 20 billion rubles have been allocated to fight forest fires in 2025. The funds will be used, among other things, to expand the system of regional air bases in the most "vulnerable" regions and strengthen their material and technical base. In January, a new forest fire center began operating in the Far East.

As part of the fight against illegal logging and transportation of timber, Patrushev said, patrolling of forests using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be strengthened. As part of a separate national project, the industry will receive almost 1.5 thousand drones.

The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that the legalization of forestry has significantly increased budget revenues — last year the amount of funds exceeded 80 billion rubles. According to him, these funds should also be directed to the industry. For example, this year, almost 3.5 billion rubles have been allocated to increase the salaries of industry specialists, and a total of 24 billion rubles are planned to be allocated by 2030.

At the end of his speech, Dmitry Patrushev added that the key tasks of the forestry complex are combined in an appropriate Strategy, which is being updated this year.

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