Ukraine is expanding the initiative to combat illegal felling of trees - from now on, photos of the logs loaded on the car will be added to the transport invoices. This innovation will come into force from July 1 in all branches of the state enterprise "Forests of Ukraine", as the head of the enterprise Yuriy Bolokhovets reported in his post on Facebook.
Improving goods and transport invoices is a key part of a large-scale project aimed at fighting with illegal logging and the gray timber market. The project is being implemented by the State Forestry Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" in cooperation with the State Forestry Agency and the State Forestry Agency "LIAC". The waybill is an official document that gives the buyer the right to transport wood. It includes information about the date, volume of wood, driver and vehicle details, as well as tag numbers. All these data are recorded in the Unified state system of electronic wood accounting. However, there is a risk that forestry workers may illegally change tags and use one invoice to transport several batches of wood of a similar volume, which makes it difficult to detect fakes during roadside inspections.
In order to eliminate such abuses, the state-owned enterprise decided supplement the bill of lading with photos of the logs loaded on the car from different angles. As the head of "Forests of Ukraine" explains, each assembled batch of wood has a unique pattern that cannot be faked, which makes the invoice unique and prevents its reuse.
Data on goods and transport invoices are open for public access. Anyone can find a specific invoice on the website of the state-owned enterprise "LIAC" by document or car number and check whether the driver's documents correspond to the actual cargo. The police, forest guards or local activists can easily detect violations by comparing the photos from the invoice with the real appearance of the logs in the car body, as Bolokhovets notes.
In May and June, the new goods and transport invoices were successfully tested in the Stolichny branches. forest office. Although not all local leaders immediately supported this initiative, the system is currently working flawlessly. Starting next month, the introduction of photos in invoices will be mandatory throughout Ukraine, the head of "Forests of Ukraine" emphasized.
At the same time, testing of the system for controlling the movement of timber trucks began in the branches of the Forestry Office. This is another stage in the fight against illegal logging and the shadow wood market. All farm vehicles are equipped with GPS trackers and must drive along defined routes, and their movements will be tracked online.
In the past, there have been several attempts to implement similar systems in individual forestry farms, but these attempts were not successful for various reasons. . However, thanks to the reform of the industry, the online monitoring system should now be fully operational, Bolokhovets concluded.
