Duma Reverses Course on Baikal Law, Bans Clear-Cutting

The State Duma will finalize the law on the protection of Lake Baikal regarding permission for clear-cutting for infrastructure projects. This was announced to journalists by Dmitry Kobylkin, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, reports Interfax.

For context, amendments to the lake protection law, which had been discussed since 2022, allowed clear-cutting around the lake for infrastructure and tourism projects. In practice, logging is now only banned for personal needs. The amendments were adopted in the first reading in July 2023.

Irkutsk scientists called the document an «environmental time bomb» and suggested that authorities not consider it. Tatyana Kalikhman, a researcher at the Sochava Institute of Geography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an Honored Ecologist of Russia, explained in detail what was wrong with the document. Moreover, in September 2025, a group of RAS scientists wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin asking not to allow the adoption of this law. Shamans also appealed to the authorities with the same request. Later, scientists again spoke out against the adoption of the bill, and UNESCO demanded to see the amendments.

Nevertheless, the State Duma adopted the bill in December 2025. After Vladimir Putin signed the document, the head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, spoke about the benefits of the law.

«We are now finalizing the law, amending the Forest Code, clear-cutting on Lake Baikal will be banned. That is definite,» the publication quotes Dmitry Kobylkin as saying.

The new amendments to the Baikal law are intended to balance the tasks of environmental protection of the lake and the socio-economic development of local settlements. At the same time, the risks of uncontrolled deforestation around the lake must be completely eliminated.

Kobylkin also spoke about a new mechanism for approving new projects on Lake Baikal. For these purposes, a special commission will be created, whose decisions will be based on scientific opinions from the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The commission will include State Duma deputies, Russian senators, representatives of the presidential administration, the Russian government, the FSB, and top officials of Irkutsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia.

«The Baikal Commission is not an expert commission. It is a body that will make decisions: »white or black ball« regarding any construction, infrastructure or tourism development in the area. This commission will make decisions based on scientific data, nothing else can happen,» explained Dmitry Kobylkin.

Incidentally, in 2026, elections for State Duma deputies will take place. The single voting day is set for September 20.