Repurposing Parcels Of Woodland: The Problems Of Securing Public And Private Interests

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study concerning the conditions of repurposing parcels of woodland with the substantiation of an optimal mechanism for ensuring public and private interests in the process of adoption and implementation of relevant administrative decisions. The present state of the legislative regulation of this issue is analyzed and our own vision of its further improvement is highlighted. In particular, the removal of restrictions on giving consent to alienation and repurposing parcels of woodland by the government is considered to be untimely and likely to lead to more serious abuse in the sphere of forestry, taking into account the general situation of large-scale uncontrolled and unauthorized felling of forests in the state.

We support scientific and practical ideas about the necessity of scientifically sound zoning of forests in each region, dividing the forest fund into functional zones with different modes of conservation, reproduction and use of forest resources, depending on the features and needs of natural complexes. The control function of the state should only be strengthened in the sphere of forestry relations. State (non­commercial) interest, which should be the guarantor of the ecological orientation of state policy in the sphere of forestry relations and the mouthpiece of environmental public interests, in this case it should dominate the private interests of business entities in order to provide the main task of state regulation and management in the field of forestry relations, namely ensuring effective protection, proper aegis, rational use and reproduction of forests. The content of administrative decisions in the sphere of forestry at all levels should take into account, as a first priority, the environmental component of these relations. In addition, the effective and valid implementation of the legislative and legal principles of public participation in the decision-making process for forest management and forestry should be an integral part of the system of qualitative environmental management. The interested environmental community is often the mouthpiece of public interests, presents them to the state, provides and controls the state of their incorporation and reflection in the law.