Illegal Forest Management
Without Approved Management Plans
Example of illegal conduct in the work of Croatian Forests Ltd:
Renewal or revision of the ten-year Forest Management Plan for each Management Unit begins in the last year of the current plan and ends in the first half of the first year of the new ten-year Plan or Program.
Eg. According to this management plan, the plans whose validity expired in 2017 had to be renewed no later than the second half of 2017 or by 30.06.2018.
At the end of December 2018, Croatian Forests Ltd did not have Forest Management Plans that had to be approved by an administrative act of the Ministry of Agriculture, although they were required to do so, therefore Croatian Forests Ltd managed forests and forest lands outside the prescribed legal framework.
Number of Forest Management Plans whose validity period expired on 31.12.2017. There were 72, and out of those 72 forest management plans, only 4 of them were renewed and approved by an administrative act – a decision by the Ministry of Agriculture. Therefore, 68 economic units did not have an approved Management Plan and were managed illegally. The last deadline by which the Plans were to be renewed was June 30, 2018. years.
When the Management Plans whose expiration date expired on 31.12.2017 are added to all the Plans whose validity period expired on 31.12.2018., there is a scandalous fact that 20% of the area of forests and forest lands almost by the end of 2019 was outside the legal management.
A comprehensive review of renewal of management plans dynamics by Management Units whose plans expired in 2017 and 2018 showed that 16 (out of 17) branches of the Forest Administration did not comply with legal provisions on timely submission of requests for approval of Management Plans to the Ministry of Agriculture. During the period from the expiration of the old Plans, to the time of approval of new ones by the Ministry of Agriculture, the activities of felling, extraction and sale of timber were performed illegally, and material gain was made in an illegal manner.
Also, it is quite certain that the Ministry of Agriculture, by issuing an administrative act – Decisions, issued only in 2019 confirming the validity of the new Management Plans from 1 January 2018, basically “covered up” the illegal operations of Hrvatske šume d.o.o. (Croatian Forests Ltd.) in the period from the expiration of Plans 31 .December 2017 until the date when the Basics were officially approved by the Decision.
During the process of revealing and proving corruption, crime and devastation of our forests, we forwarded all findings and documents to the Office of the Ombudsman Lora Vidović, who promptly, ex officio, sent inquiries to the competent institutions and demanded their statements. Without exception, the official responses were general, with the intention of concealing the true situation, i.e. carrying out illegal forest management activities.
One of the examples is the statement of the State Inspectorate CLASS: 321-10 / 19-01 / 908, UR: NUMBER: 442-06 / 1055-19-2 of 10 June 2019. The State Inspectorate reports in a very brief letter to the Office of the Ombudsman on performed inspections from 1 January 2017 to 1 May 2019 in the area of Medvednica forests, and does not report a single word to the Office on illegal forest management without approved Management Plans!
At the same time, the President of the Management Board of Hrvatske šume d.o.o. (Croatian Forests Ltd.) sends a letter Class: DIR-19-01 / 2546, Reg. No: 00-01 / 01-19-01 dated 10 June 2019 to all heads of the Croatian Forests Ltd Administration stating:
”At a meeting at the State Inspectorate held on June 5, 2019 on the request of the Chief State Inspector Hrvatske šume d.o.o. (Croatian Forests Ltd.) have been informed that they will not be able to perform any work in Management Units for which they do not have approved Forest Management Plans…” and
“As the legal deadline (June 30, 2019) for submitting for approval Forest Management Plans to the Ministry of Agriculture approaches , the validity of which begins on January 1, 2019, we would like to warn you that non-compliance with this deadline, except for inability to perform works, is subject to sanctions…”.
It is scandalous to not specified the violation of the obligation to adopt Forest Management Plans whose validity expired on 31 December 2017, which had to be completed on 30 June 2018!
