Globalization and the Forest Sector in the Russian Far East

Abstract

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the central government of the Russian Federation introduced policies of economic liberalization and administrative decentralization and gave regional governments more authority to define their own development efforts. Among other things, regional governments in the Russian Far East (RFE) opened the forest sector to expanded economic and environmental collaboration with foreign firms and international organizations. This paper reviews the new situation and highlights some issues that are particular to the globalization of forest use in the RFE. The first section presents an overview of the natural resource and political-economic base of the forest sector in the region. The second section presents the internationalization of the forest industry, as domestic and foreign forest industry enterprises turned to the Pacific Rim markets of Japan,China, and the Republic of Korea for the export of RFE wood products. The third section focuses on the parallel internationalization of the forest ecological movement,as nongovernmental organizations and multi- and bilateral development agencies joined hands with Russian counterparts to work toward the sustainable use of forest resources in Russia’s Pacific territories.