The procedure for calculating deforestation compensation payable by forest owners^[1] has become more proportionate and more effective. One of the main changes is that people will from now on be able to choose whether to pay the compensation in money or to establish a forest elsewhere, thereby offsetting the consequences of the deforestation. That, almost three years ago, was also the Ombudsman's recommendation. The Ombudsman commends the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Forest Service (VMD) for setting out such an alternative solution in the Cabinet of Ministers regulations^[2].

Deforestation in practice means an activity in which the owner of a forest (a private individual or a company) converts it into land put to some other use. For example, for construction, mineral extraction, the creation of agricultural land and so on. The state sets the amount of compensation payable for deforestation. Failure to pay it counts as unauthorised deforestation, for which the law lays down a penalty. However, paying the compensation does not release anyone from the obligation to obtain a felling permit. If trees are felled without one, administrative or even criminal liability may follow.

Before the amendments to the Cabinet Regulations, the situation was as follows: if deforestation was carried out without the compensation having been paid beforehand, the VMD would later recover it from the owner or possessor at three times the amount. As long ago as 2021, the Ombudsman pointed out that such a requirement was disproportionate. “We were not assessing the size of the penalty as such, but drew attention to the shortcoming that compensation could be paid solely in money, with no option to plant a new forest. And yet the overall nature protection objective to be achieved – carbon sequestration and the preservation of biological diversity – would be exactly the same if the landowner were to re-establish the forest area elsewhere,” says Ineta Rezevska, Head of the Social, Economic and Cultural Rights Division of the Ombudsman's Office.

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Under the Forest Law, persons carrying out deforestation must compensate the state for the negative consequences caused – a potential reduction in carbon dioxide sequestration and in biological diversity, as well as a weakening of the functions of protective zones.