Keep it Legal Country Guide. Practical guide for verifying timber origin legality. - Moscow, WWF-Russia, 2010. In Russian

This Country Guide is primarily designed to help keep illegally sourced timber out of supply chains that begin in Russia. It is targeted specifically at those who purchase timber products sheet materials, sawn timber, pulp, paper, furniture, and other wooden manufactured goods from Russia.

This Guide is prepared for use in conjunction with the WWF Global Forest & Trade Network publication “Keep it Legal”. The Keep it Legal manual (KIL) is an international guide for timber buying organizations that wish to keep illegal timber out of their supply chains, and provides a generalized methodology to ensure legality.

Country Guides for major timber exporting nations as Indonesia and Malaysia have already been developed; a Country Guide for China is also being prepared. These Country Guides have a unified structure and are designed to be universal guidebooks to identify and prevent the infiltration of illegal timber into supply chains in specific regions. Under high risk conditions,

for example, companies are recommended to introduce audit and systems of timber origin legality tracking.

The Country Guide for Russia focuses on aspects specific to Russia, first of all being timber origin legality tracking and related legal issues. Russia is one of the world’s major producers of timber and related forest products, many of which are traded around the world.

Without a doubt, forest certification offers a high probability timber may be legally sourced. This is not true, however, for wood from uncertified forests. We recommend using this practical guide to keep illegally sourced timber out of supply chains.

This guide looks at the existing regulatory structures and how these are being undermined by illegal practices. It then goes on to propose a range of tactics specific to situations found in Russia for identifying, restricting, and ultimately stopping any illegal timber or timber products from entering your supply chains.

This practical guide maps out a practical way forward. This guide has been developed specifically for those who purchase Russian timber and timber products. However, it may also help Russian producers to better understand responsible international purchase requirements, as well as demonstrate what activities could satisfy these requirements on the national level. Moreover, the guide can be used by organizations and agencies of the Russian forest sector in order to improve the legal basis for Russian timber origin since it includes information on the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system. For companies, practical and achievable steps are provided to meet these objectives, which are especially timely considering the Lacey Act

Amendment of 2008 and similar EU legislation, which will be adopted soon. This publication will also be useful for government officials, educational institutions, and NGOs.

This Guide is being published after approval of the new Forest Code of Russia (2006), which includes more than 70 new legal acts. We plan to update and improve the Guide as new forest legislation is developed further.