November 12, 2012. In the nine months of 2012, about 600m RUR worth of damage was done to Ural Federal District by illegal lumbermen, the district’s Forestry Department’s press officer reports.

1,320 cases of illegal lumbering (amounting to 68,391 m3) were registered in Ural Federal District over the same period. The damage was estimated at 593.3m RUR.

In fact, the number of cases of illegal lumbering went down by 5% (or 66 instances) against the nine months of 2011, while the volume of illegal logging decreased by 27% (or 25,641 m3) and the damage done to the district declined by 25% (the figure came to 790m RUR in 2011).

The greatest number of illegitimate logging instances was registered in Sverdlovsk Region (475 instances, which comes to 35% of all the cases registered in Ural Federal District) and Chelyabinsk Region (365 cases, or 27% of the total number of cases).

173.6m RUR worth of claims were laid against the culprits (this comes to 29% of the total damage). The better part of this sum pertains to Sverdlovsk Region (135.3m RUR, or 77% of the entire sum). So far, 16m RUR worth of damages has been paid within the district.