Deputies of Odesa Regional Council prepare a request to the President to extend the ban on timber exports

Deputies of the Odesa Regional Council have prepared an appeal to the President of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to extend the moratorium on the export of timber (unprocessed wood) abroad.

The relevant draft decision was published by the press service of the regional council.

It was initiated by representatives of the For the Future political party. The authors of the appeal insist that the forest is a strategic state resource that is currently used not only in the economy but also for the needs of the Defense Forces, infrastructure, logistics, and community life support.

For many years, uncontrolled deforestation and the export of timber in the form of unprocessed
wood have caused irreparable damage to the economic and environmental state of Ukraine. In order to protect the strategic resources of the state, develop the timber processing industry, and combat the shadow timber market, on April 9, 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine amended the Law of Ukraine "On Peculiarities of State Regulation of Business Entities Related to the Sale and Export of Timber" regarding a temporary ban on the export of unprocessed timber, which introduced a moratorium on the export of roundwood abroad for 10 years.

This law expires in November 2025 . The end of the moratorium, according to the initiators of the appeal, will inevitably lead to massive exports of unprocessed timber abroad, the closure of hundreds of small and medium-sized woodworking enterprises, the loss of thousands of jobs, and billions of hryvnias in revenue shortfalls to local budgets, primarily rural communities.

Now the deputies propose to extend the ban for another 10 years.

Earlier, the head of the Odesa Regional Council, Hryhoriy Didenko , ordered the deputies to convene a meeting of the twenty-seventh session of the Regional Council. According to the order, the session will be held on June 6. The agenda has not yet been formed, so it looks like a list of blocks that will form the agenda for the day of the meeting.

Кирило Бойко