More than 100 trees have been illegally cut down since the beginning of the year, in one district of Makhachkala. The total area of the land cleared of trees is 3 hectares.

Residents of the Kirovsky district of Makhachkala organised a protest against the felling of the Eltavski Forest. Alibek Aliyev, assistant to the president of Daghestan, met with indignant residents.

‘We won’t allow them to launch construction there, because this is one of the few green zones left in the city. We have to reverse the permission given for the construction. However this issue has been delayed by the capital’s administration’, newspaper Versia quotes Alibek Aliyev.

The Daghestani branch of the All-Russia People’s Front — a coalition between the ruling party United Russia and numerous nongovernmental organizations — reported that a large pit has already been dug in the area, ready for construction of an apartment block.

In order to rescue forests, the organisation suggests speeding up the process of granting urban parkland status to the area, which would involve defining the forest borders and toughening penalties for felling trees in the forest.