Most participants of the Forest Dialogue entitled ‘Sustainable Use of Hunting, Food and Recreation Forest Resources as Economic Component of Rural Area’ held on 23-24 April 2018 in Syktyvkar wanted to discuss rural tourism development.

As one could learn at the conference, local entrepreneurs at some areas of the region provide tourism services nowadays, they are A.Agafonov in Serebryanye Rodniki recreation camp, Kolyel, Sysola district, A.Zabavsky family farm in Abkodzh recreation camp, Mezhador; E.Bugaev in Zhemchuzhiny Sysoly recreation camp in Pervomaysky; sole proprietor N.Brylyakov in Putic tourist center; Ozherelye Udory, some guest houses along the Mezen and a number of enthusiasts in Udora district.

The conference participants were really interested in the report by Maria Gicheva, Vizuv deputy director, about Kadam recreation camp located in Kerchomya, Ust-Kulom district. The camp was opened in 2008 on the lakeside in a very picturesque area. Marina’s husband Nikolay Gichev heads the company, so they do almost everything to run the camp and serve the customers together. The biggest challenge at the beginning was shortage of funds for the business development, in particular, for designing of forest development plans and other permits. They started everything with selling their comfortable apartment in Syktyvkar to rent the lake and adjacent area and build a number of guest houses near the lake. Cleaning of the territory took a lot of time. That is what they have to do all the time, as there are a lot of rubbish – plastic bottles, plastic bags and boxes – in the lake. Now Kadym can accomodate up to 30 people at once. Half of visitors come here to pick mushrooms and berries. For the  period from June to September  the Gichevs manage to welcome over 500 visitors at their facility. People come from almost everywhere – from their Ust-Kulom district, from Priluzye, from Syktyvkar, and from other regions – Moscow, St.Petersburg, Vologda. Sometimes there are foreign guests, for example, some tourists from Finland have recently visited the camp. A night at the camp costs about 500 rubles for each visitor.

Oleg Nikulin, director of the Prilusye administration head-supported Arts and Crafts Center, also shared some interesting tourism development experience. The Center has various areas of focus, 5 years ago it founded Priluzye District Visit Center.  First of all, the center promotes folk arts and crafts, however, it also tries to develop various, mainly ethnographic and ecological tours. For example, it has recently introduced the Ancestors’ Path ethnic tour and opened the Tarachevo ethnic park for tourists. The park has a traditional Bride Spot (area for a wedding picnic) with wooden sculptures of Pera and Zaran, ancestors of Komi people, renovated wooden platforms and pavilions. The center has built the infrastructure on its own with minor support of the municipality. Now the area is used for public holidays or weddings. The objective of the center is not to gain profit, but to make it more interesting and entertaining for the villagers to spend their free time.

Teacher Mikhail Gabov from Nivshera, Kortkeros district, spoke about tours he organized for schoolchildren.

Tatyana Plato, deputy director of the PA Center informed the participants about the tours at specially protected natural areas of regional significance.

Vitaly Shchenyavsky, candidate of economic science and senior research scientist of Territorial Development Laboratory, Institute of Social, Economic and Power Problems of the North, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch, RAS, provided general information about tourism development in the Republic. Residents of the Komi Republic form the biggest share (about 80%) of all tourists (according to the 2015 data). In the sphere of environmental tourism the most popular sites are the Yugud Va National Park and Pechora-Ilych State Biosphere Reserve.  In 2017, 6,400 people visited the national park, foreigners being only 3%. In 2014, the reserve was visited by 3,247 people. The most efficient tourist products are offered in Inta and Vuktyl districts funded through the operation of Yugyd Va and input of the locals who arrange transfer to the park for tourists.

Event tourism is becoming more and more attractive now. The regional event Cherinyan Gazh, fish pie day held in Pechora district, is annually attended by around 15 thousand visitors, Ust-Tsilma Gorka, traditional holiday, – by 3,000 visitors, blacksmith festival Kort Ayka in Kortkeros – by over 500 people, according to the facilitators. About 120 guest houses and tourist camps operate in the tourist sector. Event tourism brings social and cultural benefits rather than economic effect. Low earning capacity of cultural events (Ust-Tsilma Gorka and other traditional folk holidays) versus their capital intensity does not mean their role in tourism development is insignificant. However, an important task is to reinforce the commercial component of events by providing more tourist services, such as comfortable accommodation, souvenirs, various entertainments (master classes, exhibitions, etc.), tours combining different events or places.

The issue whether it is worth for the rural residents to deal with tourism was heatedly discussed at the section meeting. According to Galina Knyazeva, PhD in Economics and professor of the Institute of Economics and Finance, Syktyvkar State University, before introduction of a tourist project it is necessary to calculate its economic efficiency both for the municipality, and for the region. Meanwhile, few people pay attention to the economic component when developing their projects nowadays, almost all events for tourists are costly and bring no money for the budget. The problem is aggravated by the fact that there is no clear concept for tourism development in forested areas. There is no focus on real local initiatives and their support, but enforced projects and holidays. Galina Knyazeva suggested testing the economic part of the tourism development ideas in 1-2 pilot districts with good potential and promising initiatives.

She thinks, now rural residents are mistaken, if they consider tourism as a cure-all solution for each municipality’s economy trying to “reinvent the wheel” nearly in every residential area. The thing is you can’t rely on tourism everywhere, but what is important is the tourist potential, tourist resources – an exceptional cultural or historic site or event, or unusual natural site, or well-preserved and well-presented ethic features…

The Dialogue participants noted they would have found it difficult to quarrel with Galina’s statements. Nevertheless, they insisted on the idea of developing local tours.  As Valentina Semyashkina, deputy director of the Silver Taiga Foundation, stated, village enthusiasts suffer from insufficient support from municipal authorities.

“Heads of municipalities often say that they don’t need any tourism, as it brings no income to the municipal budget. It is obvious that two-three entrepreneurs will hardly make the district prosperous, but authorities fail to understand that locals do get some additional income with the help of tourism,” Valentina Semyashkina highlighted.

District representatives supported her actively. “I have developed the Ozherelye Udory (Udora Necklace) tour, and for over five years I have been offering it for tourists, organizing rafting along the Mezen from Usogorsk to Patrakovo. And in those villages where tourist groups stay owners of the guest houses get ready for the visitors for the whole year. To make everything look good, villagers equip their guest houses, build solid saunas, and renovate churches. As a result, villages grow, people try to improve something, they apply for grants and win contests. For example, the village of Selyib, has risen and revived due to this fact. It seems to me, that the essence of rural tourism development is to make rural life better,” Alexander Morozov, head of Ozherelye Udory, noted.

Villagers do not expect large profit, they try to develop tourism locally without any instructions from superior authorities or experts’ recommendations. The most important thing for them all is to make their native place cozy for themselves and attractive for visitors. And it makes no difference for them if they welcome foreign guests or people from a neighbouring village – they try hard anyway.

The conference participants summed up that success can be achieved through more systematic and targeted interaction of all stakeholders – regional authorities, municipal administrations, local communities, business environment and NGOs.

The conversation about hunting held during the Forest Dialogue meeting focused on Sustainable Use of Hunting, Food and Recreation Forest Resources as Economic Component of Rural Area held on 23-24 April 2018 in Syktyvkar revealed a whole number of dramatic changes in this industry over the recent years.

Before early 90s hunting entities – cooperatives and collective farms – generated 2 percent of the national gross domestic product. Now, as Stepan Sidorov, chairman of the Komi Republic Hunting and Fishing Association, noted, hunting ceased to be an independent economic sector. Loss of profit is half the trouble, as reduced commercial hunting leads to extinction of the professional hunter’s job. When Federal Law on Hunting and Preservation of Hunting Resources and Amendment of Certain Laws of the Russian Federation was adopted in 2010, mandatory training and test required for the hunting license to be granted was abolished. As a result, many today’s hunters fail to distinguish between male and female ducks. Stepan Sidorov thinks that poor knowledge of hunting ethics, skills and legal culture is the main factor causing violation of hunting rules nowadays.

Elena Styazhkina, first deputy head of Ust-Kulom administration, also sees collapse of the commercial hunting system as the reason for some negative effects.  According to her words, hunting is a hobby and leisure for most rural inhabitants to a large extent, there are hardly any professional hunters earning money through selling fur left. Hunting has become unprofitable. First of all, hunting is a seasonal activity and cannot provide regular income. Secondly, hunting involves a lot of efforts, because you need to walk through large areas, however, demand for fur stays low, and purchasing prices have fallen significantly against if compared to previous years.

Collapse of the industry, according to Mr. Sidorov, results from instability of the federal legislation controlling all relevant issues. He claims that laws and regulations are constantly amended, and there has been not a single season since 2010 with no change of hunting rules, which makes it even worse for the development of the sector. He believes, it will be possible to adjust the situation if existing regional laws and regulations are allowed to be amended.

According to the effective legislation, as was noted by many conference attendees, the best hunting grounds are leased to commercial hunting husbandries, with privileged members and wealthy amateur hunters having access to them only, while local hunting associations and those who collect mushrooms and berries use whatever forest resources remain. All that results in conflicts between hunting husbandries and local residents. At the same time, the Komi Republic Hunting and Fishing Association, the oldest hunting union in the region dealing with facilitation of amateur hunting at the most accessible and frequently visited hunting grounds under its umbrella, is facing a challenge now due to unsettled lease disagreements at such areas.

Public hunting grounds remain almost unattended and are hardly protected from poaching, as the headcount of state game managers and inspectors goes down steadily. It is not surprising with the average salary of a hunting sector worker being 11,172 rubles and poor provision with respective technical or other special devices. On the contrary, poachers and offenders get better and better equipped. As a result, losses caused by poaching exceed gain from sales of hunting licenses and hunting ground lease twice.

Rural hunters suffer most of all.

“Hunters from rural areas are left to own devices now. Following traditions of their ancestors they continue building huts, catching sables, shooting elks and bears, but there is no fur market in the region, there aren’t even any fur resellers. Fur is delivered to auctions in Kirov region via some “grey” channels. And the Komi Republic is not the only region with such problems”, Yury Pautov, director of the Silver Taiga Foundation, believes.

That was the topic of chairman of Udorachi indigenous people  community Albert Loginov’s presentation which was shown by Yury Pautov, because Albert himself could not come to the forum because of seasonal road inaccessibility.

According to A. Loginov, there are actually traditional forest use areas (hunting grounds, trappers’ trails, hunting huts) in the Republic of Komi and they play an important part in sustenance of the local population. However, such areas are not protected by law and may be withdrawn and allocated for industrial use at any moment. The thing is that Komi has no regulation base for traditional forest management areas.

An option to provide such areas with an official status of protected areas could be creation of a new type of regional or local PA. The Federal Law on PA makes it possible (art.2, part 2, Federal Law on PA), but any such attempts would contradict the land legislation.

To preserve traditional natural resources use one could use the mechanism of territorial public self-governments, but even they do not guarantee complete protection of rural residents’ hunting grounds. At the moment, the only possible way is conservation of tribal lands at FSC certified companies’ leased areas.

The Komi Republic Ministry of Natural Resources is looking for methods to legalize the rights of villagers for hunting grounds and, in particular, hunting huts. Today, as Pavel Azarenkov, head of forest register and forest use department, Forestry Administration, Komi Republic Ministry of Natural Resources, noted, hunting huts in the forest are considered as illegal structures, as they have no legal documents. Meanwhile, Bolshaya Pyssa in Udora district only has over 80 hunting huts (2.5 per hunter in average).

Local residents are ready to become owners, but the mechanism of huts and land lease remain complicated and may take at least six months. Lease agreement is made with entities or sole proprietors only. The Forest Code of the Russian Federation stipulates no other method allowing citizens legalizing ownership of forest huts. Therefore, the Ministry of Natural resources of the Komi Republic has developed a bill to be forwarded to the Komi Republic State Council, so as deputies of the supreme legislative body of the Republic could promote an initiative to amend the Forest Code of the Russian Federation and let residents of the region own their hunting huts legitimately. According to Mr. Azarenkov, regions have to be provided with powers to give residents rights to rent land for own needs, such as hunting or collecting mushrooms and berries, without any auctions. Secondly, regions need to be provided with a possibility to define the limit of the area that can be rented by an individual.  That would simplify the documentation process for forest buildings used for own needs. And it will be a win-win solution for both citizens and the state.

To sum up the discussion of hunting problems, Yury Pautov, Silver Taiga’s director, suggested involving state authorities, forestries to be exact, in the process of mapping and conservation of hunting huts and trappers’ trails which now involves local residents and FSC certified lease holders. “Forestries may not give areas that are important for local residents to forestry companies for lease, when they plan forest fund allocation. These are to a greater degree forestries that know exactly about areas that are significant for the locals,” Yury Pautov highlighted.

The Komi Dialogue has developed into an ongoing multi-stakeholder platform that’s been a fruitful convening tool in the Russian region for the past 10 years. First convened in 2008 as a field visit for The Forest Dialogue’s initiative on Forests and Poverty Reduction, the Komi Dialogue has now successfully gathered four subsequent dialogues with varying topics relating to forestry and local livelihoods. The platform has been ushered along under the stewardship of Silver Taiga and Mondi Syktyvkar.

The dialogue hosts represent two ends of the stakeholder spectrum in Komi. Silver Taiga is a foundation focused on promoting and supporting the forest stakeholders with the development of sustainable forest management in the Komi Republic and other regions of the Russian Federation. Mondi Group is an international packaging and paper group operating in more than 30 countries that looks to sustainably manage forests and purchase wood from responsible sources to produce pulp, paper and packaging. Together the two entities have fostered a relationship of mutual benefit and trust that manifests in continued support and exchange around local issues through the dialogue platform.

The impetus for developing such a dialogue rose out of Mondi’s desire to experiment with a multi-stakeholder platform, which was very rare at the time in Komi. While Mondi previously convened locals through local offices, but after centralization of forest enterprises close communication was lost and contacts were limited to heads of municipalities responsible for huge swaths of land only. Local peoples and Mondi realized the resulting gap and saw a growing need for bottom-up conversations about forest management planning, policies, and processes with all stakeholders connected to the land.

The 2008 dialogue was first opportunity to reinstate local uptake of opinions and knowledge, participatory planning, and information sharing about Mondi’s future land use plans. It was clear throughout the 2008 Dialogue that commercial forestry already played a large role in sustaining some rural livelihoods in Komi. Forest leaseholders provide vital employment, tax revenue, and infrastructure development that are available from few other sources. But a major theme of the first dialogue was that new models and approaches were necessary if forest industry and the government were to make major improvements in rural livelihoods, and address the key social issues surrounding forest use. This was not simply a question of changing company policies or amending Komi’s forest regulations. It required broadening the scope of local involvement in forest use planning, and increasing the capacity of villages to represent their interests in their relation to industry and government. The on-going platform has taken up this call to action and catalyzed real results for local stakeholders.

Nine years later, the platform convenes local participants representing forest industry, NGOs, community groups, indigenous organizations, government, and the private sector on a regular basis. By involving local people in forest-situated villages affected by forest management, the on-going dialogues have led to more deep and targeted conversations for the Mondi paper-mill enterprise. Before dialogues, these stakeholders did not have regular conversations and subsequently most did not understand policies, agreements, and movements according to sustainable management. The dialogue platform has been able to provide the much needed more information, more regularly, with enhanced transparency and improved clarity. Furthermore, there has been an increase in informal conversations with local communities that may not be formally recognized as forestry stakeholders but have special connections to the land such as hunters, fishers, women’s groups. Between the dialogues at operative level there are now rather intensive consultations with local stakeholders, but it is still important to have such kind of higher-level forum for checking progress and defining next steps forward.

A key example of tangible results born out of the multi-stakeholder platform is the establishment consistent dialogue with local communities and forest management entities or corporations that builds a network that improves community relationships and works to improve local livelihoods. For example, Mondi now works to prepare and incorporate management maps that indicate proposed operational sites, protected areas and areas of social importance for circulation to local stakeholders. They uptake feedback from these plans and submit them to forest managers for attention. Likewise, Oksana Pomysova, head of the rural settlement of Spasorub was encouraged by the outcomes of a recent meeting of a forest certification expert group that included “the Luzales management [corporation], experts and local residents involved”. Pomysova explains that “each of the parties got a chance to speak out. The experts’ comments and estimates helped the local residents to understand that Luzales has to take their interests into account, while the company is to pay a closer attention to the requirements of the local community”.

Furthermore, Mondi now has a social partnership agreement with local villages which have felt impacts from logging operations. Using this arrangement, community members can apply for funding from Mondi to improve their livelihoods. There are several examples of awarded assemblages for developing local entrepreneurship, supporting social infrastructure or developing education.

The most recent dialogue was convened in 2017 in Komi and sought to grapple with social inclusion challenges of forest management. The outcomes demonstrate significant improvement in the following always most problematic issues such as insufficient awareness by local communities of forest operations; poor access by small local entrepreneurs to forest resources; limited supply of firewood and sawn timber; conflicts with traditional non-timber uses of forests; and the impact of heavy timber trucks on public roads.

The Forest Dialogue’s initial convening in 2008 served as a catalyst for multi-stakeholder dialogue that has developed into a key convening platform today. Both Mondi and Silver Taiga has seen the importance of convening local stakeholders who offer importance voices to forest management discussions. The Forest Dialogue looks forward to seeing continued collaboration amongst stakeholders in a way that fosters further results for local livelihoods. For more information about the first Komi dialogue, please visit Silver Taiga archive.