Month: June 2025
Since last year, SFE “Forests of Ukraine” has begun substantially upgrading not only its vehicle fleet but also its motorcycle transport. In 2024, it procured 74 modern Yamaha motorcycles. The majority were dispatched to the forestry units of its resource-rich branches—Pivnichnyi, Stolychnyi and Poliskyi Forest Offices.
Why motorcycles?
Because they offer speed, off-road capability, and operational control. Where a car cannot go, a motorcycle allows you to:
– Quickly reach a harvesting site or deep forest area via narrow paths and steep slopes.
– Respond promptly to fires—motorcycles arrive at the ignition point within five minutes, and small blazes can be immediately contained using backpack sprayers.
– Monitor harvesting legality—from on-site inspections to warehouse inventory.
– Monitor hard-to-access areas—identifying tree diseases or illegal logging has become much easier.
Advantages of the motorcycle:
Mobility: compact, all-terrain, and fast—ideal for off-road conditions.
Cost-efficiency: A motorcycle’s purchase price is roughly ten times lower than that of a vehicle. Foresters spend less on maintenance, and a motorcycle consumes only 3–4 L of fuel per 100 km, compared to 10–15 L for a car.
Simplicity of maintenance: can be refueled from a jerrycan and require minimal upkeep costs.
Eco-friendliness: with lower fuel consumption, these motorcycles produce correspondingly fewer exhaust emissions, reducing their environmental impact.
Foresters are pleased with this upgrade. In particular, at Chernihivske Forestry Management Unit, which received five motorcycles last year, they say these bikes are an excellent complement to their vehicle fleet and praise their effectiveness.
Based on last year’s experience and the high demand for motorcycle transport in other regions, this year’s investment plan provides for the procurement of 211 motorcycles.
In addition to the resource‐rich branches, the motorcycles will also be deployed to Karpatskyi Forest Office, where the greatest number of hard-to-reach areas exists, and at the South.
Over the past two years, our specialists carried out field trials of laser‐scanning capabilities using equipment supplied by a specialized company. These trials were conducted in both coniferous and deciduous stands. We confirmed that this technology enables accurate modeling of forest‐stand structures and compared the performance of various types of LiDAR scanners.
This year, the enterprise purchased its own scanning equipment.
At the Boyarka Forest Research Station, a separate unit of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (NUBiP), employees of SFE “Forests of Ukraine” demonstrated the significant capabilities of laser‐scanning technology with simultaneous tree mapping (SLAM) in pine stands.
– The technology enables the identification of all trees with a stem diameter of 2 cm or bigger.
– Data processing in specialized software makes it possible to determine timber volume, the height, and diameters of individual trees, as well as the average stand height with 100 % accuracy.
– The use of a handheld laser scanner replaces several traditional instruments at once, such as a caliper, measuring tape, altimeter, and photo-video documentation tools. Scanning a 0.5 ha pine stand with LiDAR took 15 minutes, whereas measuring tree diameters over the same area using a caliper required over an hour. This will shorten the duration and reduce the cost of forest inventory operations.
– Automated timber‐volume assessment eliminates human error and prevents unaccounted timber.
– A single person operates the handheld laser scanner, whereas traditional forest inventory methods require a team.
“We are currently finalizing a methodology for conducting operational forest inventories. Scientists from NUBiP provided us with inventory data for plots that we surveyed using mobile laser scanning. Once we process the scan results in the specialized software, we will compare them against the reference data and develop an algorithm to calculate the key metrics needed for our operational activities,” says Olha Moroziuk, Manager of the Digitalization and IT Systems Development Division, Development and IT Department, SFE “Forests of Ukraine.”
Immediately upon completing the research and developing the software‐use algorithms, the equipment will be deployed in our branches. We also plan to procure an airborne laser‐scanning system. By combining 360° ground imagery with aerial scanning, we will generate a highly accurate digital 3D model of the forest massif.
The Director General of SFE “Forests of Ukraine” Yurii Bolokhovets visited Branch “Pivnichnyi Forest Office.” Together with the team, he discussed the key issue for this border region: the safety of all employees.
Currently, a significant portion of the branch’s staff works in the city of Sumy—just 30 km from the border.
Shelling, sabotage raids by enemy reconnaissance groups, damaged administrative buildings, and risky trips into the forest are daily realities for the forestry units in the Sumy Region. This forces them to take a different approach to organizing their work.
The key question is how to keep people while maintaining production processes.
Each employee decides for themselves whether to stay or relocate. Our task is to provide them with choice and support.
Among the possible solutions:
– transfer to a branch unit in a safer part of the Sumy Region;
– reassignment to units in the Chernihiv Region;
– transfer to other branches of SFE “Forests of Ukraine” in other regions.
Such examples already exist: employees from the Sumy Region are relocating with their families to Slobozhanshchyna or to the central part of Ukraine and continuing their work. This allows them to remain in their profession while safeguarding their loved ones.
The Director General emphasized the need to develop a remote‐working regime for the branch’s staff. The enemy has been halted and pushed back, but the risk of intensified shelling of Sumy remains.
Most employees of SFE “Forests of Ukraine” in the Sumy Region remain at their posts. Those who continue working in the combat zone are eligible for a 20 % bonus.
Not everyone can or wants to leave — and that’s okay. But we must have a plan in case of any developments.
New forest-firefighting modules will be deployed to the Ivano-Frankivske, Nadvirnyanske, Kolomyiske, Skolivske, Sambirske, Rakhivske, Mizhhirske, and Khustske Forestry Management Units.
The greatest need for forest‐firefighting modules is in the mountainous areas of Zakarpattia. This year, there was an abnormally warm and low‐snow winter here, and spring began with drought and a sudden temperature rise. Over two weeks in March, three large forest fires, each covering 7 to 17 ha, occurred in Mizhhirske Forestry Management Unit. The State Emergency Service assisted foresters in combating the blazes, but suppression was hampered by the fact that large‐scale equipment could not access the high‐altitude terrain.
A similar situation arose this spring in Radehivske and Skolinske Forestry Management Units in Lviv Region.
Only mobile, compact equipment such as pickups fitted with forest firefighting modules can reach those inaccessible areas. Karpatskyi Forest Office had 18 forest firefighting modules. Of the 21 Forestry Management Units, only 6 were equipped with such modules, and the entire Zakarpattia Region had just one.
The new equipment will significantly enhance rapid response to ignitions. Forest firefighting modules can be mounted on a pickup in two minutes and fully deployed on-site in three minutes. Crew: two people.
A forest firefighting module mounted on a pickup can access remote, hard-to-reach areas where large vehicles cannot. The modules hold 500–600 liters of water, sufficient to extinguish fires of up to 0.5–1 ha.
As a reminder, under this year’s investment plan of SFE “Forests of Ukraine,” the procurement of 28 forest firefighting modules is envisaged. Of these, 25 have already been acquired for the Forestry Units of Skhidnyi, Tsentralnyi, Pivdennyi, Pivnichnyi, Karpatskyi, and Stolychnyi Forest Offices. The remaining three modules will be procured at the regional level by the Stolychnyi Forest Office.
Branch “Skhidnyi Forest Office” tripled its timber harvesting in the second quarter. Over Q2, the branch sold more than 4,000 m³ of timber.
In Q2 2025, Skhidnyi Forest Office sold 1,800 m³ of firewood to household consumers. In all forestry units of the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions where harvesting takes place, firewood of all categories, both hardwood and softwood, is available in ample supply and freely accessible.
A difficult situation exists in the frontline forestry units, where harvesting is temporarily impossible due to their proximity to the front line, namely Huliaipilske (Zaporizhzhia Region) and Velykomykhailivske and Mezhivske forestry units (Dnipropetrovsk Region). Employees’ families have been evacuated to safer areas. However, the workers continue to commute and perform their duties on-site. If the situation deteriorates further, they will be offered vacant positions at other forestry units.
Since the beginning of the year, operations have been suspended at the Nikopolske, Marhanetske, and Apostolivske forestry units. Skhidnyi Forest Office has appealed to local authorities with a proposal to partially restore their operations. Residents are being supplied with firewood from other forestry units, but the greater distances increase the final cost.
Given that the region is resource-poor, its own revenues from timber sales are insufficient to sustain operations. Therefore, SFE “Forests of Ukraine” provides extensive support with equipment for wildfire suppression, forest-crop maintenance, and timber harvesting. In particular, the branch recently received six forest firefighting modules, now mounted on pickups, and five hydraulic grapples for tractors used in timber skidding.
Skhidnyi Forest Office is also working toward self-sufficiency: tighter control over timber allocations and harvesting has boosted merchantable timber output by 30%, and the share of industrial use firewood sold through the exchange has also increased.
An on-site assessment of the storm’s aftermath in the Rivne Region was conducted directly in the forest. The field meeting was convened by Serhii Chupryna, Director of Branch “Poliskyi Forest Office” of SFE “Forests of Ukraine.” Participants included Volodymyr Buchko, First Deputy Head of the State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine; Oleksandr Kokhan, Deputy Head of the Rivne Regional Military Administration; Mykola Kucheruk, First Deputy Chair of the Regional Council; Volodymyr Zakharchuk, Head of the Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Rivne Region; Oleksandr Koshyn, Head of Branch “Rivnelisozakhyst” of SSFPE “Kyivlisozakhyst”; as well as ecologists, researchers, wood processors, and journalists.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM
The storm destroyed over 700 hectares of forest in Kostopilske Forestry Management Unit. Yet, the enterprise cannot swiftly begin remediation of windthrow damage on more than 200 hectares—due to the legal requirement to undergo an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This delay introduces a new set of risks: economic, environmental, and managerial.
Eighty-one forest plots across seven forestry units of Kostopilske Forestry Management Unit were affected. In eighteen plots, 90–100% of the stands were damaged—more than 200 hectares requiring clear-cutting. Another 63 plots exhibit damage levels of 25–80 %. Throughout many areas, trees were snapped in half or uprooted. The most severely affected species were pine, oak, alder, and birch.
LOSSES
The EIA procedure lasts at least 4–6 months and costs up to UAH 1 million. During this period, the timber loses its commercial quality. For pine, the share of merchantable assortments falls from 60 % to zero within five months. The same applies to birch and alder. Had remediation works begun immediately, the enterprise could have earned up to UAH 288 million in revenue. After the delay, only UAH 147 million will be recovered. Losses will total UAH 141 million, and the state will undercollect at least UAH 55.5 million in taxes and rent payments.
Serhii Chupryna emphasized the critical impact that delays in addressing the damaged areas have on the forest ecosystem and the economy: “We have hundreds of hectares of destroyed forest—this is not a planned harvest but the aftermath of a natural disaster. These are already environmental losses—significant areas have been affected. But right now, it is crucial to prevent economic losses and remove the timber in a timely manner. Yet this is impossible because of the requirement to undergo the EIA procedure.”
Volodymyr Buchko drew attention to the contradiction between the law’s intent and its effect in emergencies: “This is a case where a law designed to protect the environment instead creates new threats. We need legislative flexibility in such circumstances, and we are working on it.”
Oleksandr Kokhan highlighted the economic losses and risks to local communities: “This storm is not only an environmental disaster but an economic one as well. We must act swiftly and within the law. This issue concerns not only the forestry and wood-processing sectors but also the environment and the stability of local budgets. The quality of the timber declines by the day. If we delay, we will exacerbate fire risks and economic losses. We are working together with all levels of government.”
Oleksandr Savytskyi emphasized the critical situation for the wood-processing sector: “We specialize, among other things, in processing high-quality birch and alder—precisely those species that very quickly lose their merchantable properties. And right now, when the timber market is in acute need of additional volumes, losing this valuable resource to bureaucratic hurdles is absurd. This is a blow not only to producers but to the entire economy, which requires stability and rapid decisions.”
The State Emergency Service and ecologists warn of an elevated risk of forest fires. Scientists caution that the damaged areas provide an ideal environment for pest proliferation. Without timely intervention, there is a risk of disease spread to healthy stands.
An obvious solution, but lost opportunities
In cases of natural disasters, the EIA procedure almost always yields a positive conclusion. Yet even this predictable formality is delayed, consuming time and money. Every month of postponement translates into losses—of resources, finances, and environmental integrity.
As a result of the meeting, it was agreed to prepare joint appeals to the Verkhovna Rada and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine regarding the regulation of procedures for addressing the aftermath of emergency situations in forests.
At the Q3 auction sales, the price of industrial‐use firewood rose by approximately 20%.
Softwood species increased on average to UAH 1,650 per m³, coniferous species to UAH 1,830 per m³, and hard broadleaf species to UAH 1,900 per m³.
Household consumers need not worry— “Forests of Ukraine” will continue to supply firewood at social prices.
Currently, the average price for non-industrial firewood (oak, hornbeam, and other hardwoods) is UAH 1,140 per m³; for the second group (pine and others), UAH 923 per m³; and for the third group (willow, poplar), UAH 824 per m³.
Social prices, as before, cover only production costs and taxes. Compared to last summer, the price has changed by no more than UAH 100 per m³.
This is solely due to increased harvesting costs — we were forced to raise the maximum rates for harvesting crews.
Social prices do not even include the costs of forest restoration activities—these are covered by SFE “Forests of Ukraine.”
We urge Ukrainians not to wait for the start of the heating season and to purchase firewood now, during summer.
Buying firewood is now an entirely transparent process. We cash payments and moved to online transactions to eliminate corruption risks. You no longer need to visit the bank and wait in line to make a payment.
Firewood of all grades is currently in stock at the forestry units, and there are no queues. By winter, the wood will have had time to season, significantly boosting its heat output.
In 2024, we launched a distance-learning platform. At that time, 2,400 employees joined its training programs. Today, the number of users has doubled—nearly 5,000 employees are learning and developing alongside us.
Who needs this?
– New employees – to adapt quickly, familiarize themselves with company rules and structure, and understand the specifics of their work.
– Current staff – to upgrade their qualifications and acquire new knowledge and skills.
Access to the training platform is available to both central office staff and branch employees—not only administrative and management personnel, but also operational specialists: heads of forestry management units, their deputies, and foresters.
To members of the personnel reserve—who are preparing for leadership positions and require additional training.
To the company as a whole, since qualified and motivated employees form a team capable of responding effectively to challenges, implementing innovations, and driving the enterprise forward.
The number of courses on the portal is continually growing, as the enterprise invests in the development of its people.
To date, over 20 training programs are available, including:
– management and leadership
– time management
– communication and collaboration
– occupational health and safety
– software applications
– professional competencies for various positions.
“Professional growth of employees is not only a demand of our time but also a prerequisite for the development of the enterprise itself. That is why we continuously refine our learning tools and encourage the team to keep learning,” said Kostiantyn Voitsekhovskyi, Director of the Personnel Department.
Training takes place online in a convenient format—no travel required, at any time and from any device: computer, tablet, or mobile phone.
“The main auctions for the third quarter have concluded. Key results:
– Nearly the entire volume of round timber—98%—was contracted. Firewood for industrial use—94%. These are record figures; this has never happened before.
– The strongest price dymanic compared with Q2 was in the alder–birch segment, where average prices per cubic metre reached nearly UAH 8 000. Oak has crossed the “psychological threshold” of UAH 20 000 per m³, and ash prices rose by 30% to UAH 6 600 per m³. Pine and fir prices remained virtually unchanged. On average, price growth for round timber has slowed to approximately 6% compared with Q2.
– Prices for industrial‐use firewood have risen by more than 20%. All segments—coniferous, hardwood, and softwood—have increased by roughly the same margin. Prices for non-industrial fuel wood have climbed on average to UAH 1 550 per m³. This is a signal to the public: don’t wait for autumn—stock up on firewood this summer at the social-price rates that SFE “Forests of Ukraine” keeps stable!
– Important! SFE “Forests of Ukraine” established Q3 starting prices using a new algorithm. This was a step toward supporting business. The starting prices have not only fallen significantly compared to actual sales prices—but for round timber they have even decreased relative to the Q2 starting prices (see infographic)! However, as we can see, auction participants quickly restored the balance—once again confirming that in an open market under free competition, the starting price does not influence the final sale price.
I can’t help but mention the forward auctions for the second half of the year, which were held prior to the main Q3 auctions.
For the forward auctions, as promised, we offered 30% of the planned harvest. In the end, 96% of round timber and 91% of industrial‐use firewood were contracted.
But the key takeaway is that the forward‐auction winners didn’t lose out. Most product categories—starting with industrial-use firewood—saw price increases in the Q3 auctions.
Thus, the semiannual forward auctions we introduced have given wood processors a genuine opportunity to plan production by securing both the price and the volume of the resource”, said Yurii Bolokhovets.
Representatives of SFE “Forests of Ukraine” participated in the Steering Committee meeting of the Swiss-Ukrainian “Anti-Corruption and Asset Recovery Support” project (ACARSU).
The discussion covered interim results of the collaboration, future directions for cooperation, and the development of Ukraine’s new Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030.
In the course of the event, the Basel Institute on Governance presented information on the results of its cooperation with Ukrainian partners, including SFE “Forests of Ukraine” (the Institute and SFE “Forests of Ukraine” signed a memorandum of cooperation last year).
During 2024–2025, the Institute conducted an analysis of corruption risks within the governance system of SFE “Forests of Ukraine,” including its HR functions and procurement processes. Internal anti-corruption provisions were refined, and a number of risk-minimization recommendations were issued—some of which have already been implemented.
For example, the Basel Institute on Governance noted that the audit function does not operate as an autonomous, independent unit but is integrated into the Department of Security. This creates a risk of compromising the guarantees of internal auditors’ independence and opens the possibility of unlawful influence on their decision-making and audit conclusions.
The recommendation has been implemented: the Audit Division now functions as a separate organizational unit.
Among other measures, the distribution of functional responsibilities within the enterprise’s management has been revised to prevent an excessive concentration of authority in any one individual.
Representatives of the Institute also pointed to the high risk of interference in the enterprise’s operations by state authorities. As of this year, an independent governing body—the Supervisory Board of SFE “Forests of Ukraine”— has been established.
Cooperation between SFE “Forests of Ukraine” and the Basel Institute continues. Planned for 2025–2026 are: an assessment of corruption risks in the forestry sector, measures to minimize risks in procurement, and training on conducting internal investigations.
For reference
The Basel Institute on Governance is an independent non-profit organization specializing in anti-corruption and asset recovery. The Institute provides technical support to Ukrainian institutions, in particular in the areas of strategic risk analysis, implementation of digital tools, staff training, and the development of solutions for effective governance.