The ministry appealed to the prosecutor’s office regarding the issued permits to cut down trees in the Šimonii forest

“An employee of the State Forestry Service has been identified, who illegally issued a permit to cut a forest, using his official position, possibly in violation of the procedure for issuing logging permits. The data on this offense have already been handed over to the prosecutor’s office the day before yesterday. “, Minister Simonas Gentvilas said in a statement on Thursday.

Last week, the forest defenders began to interfere with the cutting down of trees in the Šimoniai forest after learning that the permits to do so had been issued to a plot that falls within a valuable natural area protected by law. The Ministry of Environment responded to the situation by suspending two permits to do so.

“It also turned out that information about the creation of a new protected habitat in the Natura 2000 territory was published on the portal www.biomon.lt, but the owner of the forest was not personally informed about it. Therefore, all methods of communication and information were not used in order to protect the valuable natural territory, i.e. the Western taiga”, said S. Gentvilas.

The minister’s order regarding the designation of this area as a Natura 2000 protected habitat was signed last December, and the logging permit was issued in January of this year.

S. Gentvilas urged the management of the State Service of Protected Areas to take measures to inform the owners of private forests about the emergence of new protected areas immediately.

He also tasked the State Forestry Service to analyze in detail the process of issuing logging permits in the Utena region by the middle of November 15, to review each case.

Representatives of the State Forest Office, the State Forestry Service, the Department of Environmental Protection, the State Service of Protected Areas and the owner of the forest, the company “Silvestika green forest Lithuania” took part in the discussion meeting on the cutting of the Šimoniai forest that took place on Thursday at the Ministry of the Environment.