No forestry engineer wants to move from the Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management to a new state enterprise which, according to the new Forestry Act, should take over most of the responsibilities of this Directorate from January 1 of the following year and deal with remittances, felling and extraction of felled trees .
This was told to "Vijesta" by the Trade Union Organization of the Management of Forests and Hunting Grounds, which believes that the newly adopted law is bad, that the profession did not participate in its drafting, that the proposals of the Forest Management were not accepted, that it is technically not possible to implement it, that it will lead to to chaos, to foresee the introduction of external contractors - private individuals into the forests who will be able to do what they want again...
The Assembly adopted this law on July 31, and on August 5 it was published in the Official Gazette, with an application date of January 1, 2025.
Representatives of the NGO sector and environmental activists Aleksandar Dragićević i Darko Saveljic they said that this law was a fake public debate, that it was done by the "undertakers of Montenegrin forestry", that the law does not protect protected forests from logging, that private individuals as subcontractors will once again get cheap timber and that the forests will be massacred...
Rejected profession proposals
In December 2022, the procedure for drafting amendments to the Forestry Act was initiated, when a working group was formed for this purpose. Already in April, the sole representative of the Forestry Administration resigned because most of the suggestions and proposals she made were not accepted.
The trade unions say that the procedure that the inclusion of union representatives is mandatory in the drafting of legal regulations that change the labor legal status of employees was not respected either, because the law foresees the formation of a company to which the majority of employees from the Administration should transfer.
"We want to emphasize that we are not against the reorganization in the field of forestry, on the contrary, we are aware of all the shortcomings, but we do not want to allow all activities to be carried out without respecting our views. The Directorate for Forest and Hunting Management employs 70 graduated forestry engineers, and with their vast experience, we were able to make a major contribution to improving the situation in forestry. It is also incomprehensible to us that economic analyzes and feasibility studies envisage a company like the one that existed more than 20 years ago and which was liquidated and hundreds of workers throughout Montenegro lost their jobs. Those analyzes were done unprofessionally and on the basis of wrong input parameters, so that in the end they give a completely wrong financial indicator", this union stated to "Vijesta".
Flat-rate analysis, full of assumptions
How much these analyzes are based on assumptions, as they said, is shown by just one detail - today the Administration has about 70 forestry engineers, of whom 20 will retire in the next five years, and already in 2027 it is planned that the company will 155 forestry engineers work.
"Too many lump-sum predictions would take us back to the past, and instead of the current situation, which is not good, but which, with the arrival of the new acting director, is significantly improving and producing results, we would return to an even worse situation. "Forests are a resource that was not created all at once and that will not last only in one generation, so we think that we should be more cautious in dealing with this area and create a better and longer-term solution," said the union.
They state that after several meetings with the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Vladimir Joković had agreed on amendments to that law, and agreed that the Administration should remain in this form with stronger control in all segments of work, and that a company will be formed that will carry out the exploitation and use of forests.
"The main argument was that it should be implemented in phases, so that the whole process would be sustainable in the long term. Given that we agreed with the relevant minister and made amendments to the law that were later amended, the statement of Minister Joković that he reached an agreement with the trade union in the form of the law as voted in the Parliament cannot be accepted. The minister himself said several times in his presentations in the Assembly that "the issue of remittances and contractor projects remained open and that as soon as tomorrow he would call representatives of the Administration to resolve that issue." He didn't invite us. The law has been passed," said the union.
The head of the cabinet and the secretary insisted
They also say that at the meeting in the Government, the head of the Prime Minister's Cabinet and the Secretary of the Government insisted that the amendments agreed upon until then be changed and that the responsibility for remittances, preparation of contractor projects and receipt of wood assortments be given to the future company.
"We were against it for several reasons: according to the law, only forestry engineers can make remittances, and none of the forestry engineers wants to transfer to a new company, so it is not clear who could make the remittance, and otherwise there is a deficit of professional labor strength; due to the fact that it is not logical for those who are engaged in exploitation to pay themselves what they will cut; because of the lack of control that would lead to chaos; due to the fact that it is not known who would make the remittance in private forests, because the fact is that more than half of the forests are already privately owned. After that, it was agreed that this issue of the remittance should remain conditionally resolved, and that the Administration should provide expert explanations as to why it thinks that the remittance should remain under its jurisdiction. This was done at a meeting of all forestry engineers in the Administration, and those conclusions and explanations were sent to the line minister and representatives of the Government with the signatures of all engineers. However, our arguments were not accepted, and at the 42nd session of the Government, amendments were adopted with which no one from the Administration agrees", the union stated.
They also say that at the sessions of the parliamentary committees and the Assembly, it was seen that the majority of deputies were not clear about how the division of responsibilities of the Administration and the new company would be carried out, but the Government's proposal was adopted.
The authors of the law to take responsibility
"We are advocating that the creators of the new concept take full responsibility, and if this concept fails (and they created all previous failed concepts) they are legally responsible... The introduction of external contractors in the forest is foreseen, and we come to the same thing again: private individuals enter the forest and they do what they want, and that is the main argument against which the creators of the Law are fighting, so everything looks absurd", according to this union.
Dragićević: The whole profession was against the law
Dragićević states that several norms in the law are problematic, as well as its drafting itself and the fact that the public hearing was not adequately conducted. "The same pattern of making public debates meaningless as before 2020 was followed, an invitation is published on the website and hidden somewhere where it cannot be seen, debates are not organized, opinions of independent professionals and NGOs are not sought. Thus, in the adopted document itself, it can be seen that not a single credible NGO has given its opinion, even though we have all been interested in this law for years, because this was a chance to stop the disastrous concession system once and for all. "Regardless of all the shortcomings, the Forestry Administration is an institution where almost the entire forestry profession of Montenegro is, and most of their proposals and amendments to this law were rejected," said Dragićević.
She also states that it is also problematic "who wrote the law and it is about persons from the Ministry of Agriculture who are the gravediggers of Montenegrin forestry and wood processing".
"The law itself says that the new company cuts, remits and extracts the forest, which is very problematic and opens up space for corruption and gives the management of that company absolute control over the most important resource. With this law, neither nature parks nor 'natura 2000 forests' are adequately preserved because the law is ambiguous and leaves a loophole that enables commercial logging in nature parks and 'natura 2000 forests'. The concessionaires will also be subcontractors of the state company, so they will choose what to cut, to be paid for that service, and later buy what they cut", stated Dragićević.
Saveljić: This is a seriously dangerous law
Saveljić states that the drafting of "this seriously dangerous law" was preceded by an economic analysis of the use of state-owned forests.
"It was done by the Ministry of Agriculture in September 2023 for the needs of the reorganization of the forestry sector and the formation of the state enterprise for cutting forests "Forests of Montenegro". In the same document, it is planned to cut 591 thousand cubic meters in 2025 and 846 thousand cubic meters in 2026. At the rate they are cutting state forests, this law will leave the state without state forests in a few years. If you add to that the cutting of private forests, which is enormous and without control, the law brings us a desert in Montenegro", said Saveljić.
He states that it is true that the Law stipulates that no forest is cut in the international ecological network Natura 2000.
"What is kept silent is that this network, which is made according to European standards, is established on the day of the country's entry into the EU. This means that this network does not officially exist at the moment. Thus, foresters are given space and time to focus on those forests in the coming period and to massacre them, because they are the most valuable in the country. When Montenegro will enter the EU, no one knows. Someone who wrote this has no good intentions towards Montenegro. The law did not expel foresters and forestry from the protected areas, but seriously worsened the situation that those forests are managed by the managers of the protected areas and those who see those forests as forest departments for felling. You don't need to go any further than the Komovi Nature Park to see how it works in action and how the forests in the protected area are being devastated, massacred is a more correct term, because the manager of the protected area has just as much authority over them as I do over the war in Yemen. ", said Saveljic.
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