Federal Law No. 482-FZ amending Federal Law No. 94-FZ on the protection of the Baikal lake and some legislative acts.

This Federal Law prohibits creation of housing facilities within special economic zones located inside protected area, ensuring the priority of afforestation and reforestation on the public forest fund land and withing the boundaries of water conservation zones and authorizing clear-cutting of dead forest stands that have lost their habitat-forming, water-protecting, sanitary-hygienic, health-improving and other useful functions if selective cutting does not ensure the replacement of such forest stands with forest stands that ensure the preservation of the intended purpose of protective forests and the useful functions they perform. Transfer of public forest fund land under protection forest to land of other categories for state and municipal needs shall be authorized for the purpose of preventing negative impact of water, hazardous geological and other natural processes. In order to ensure a balanced solution to the problems of the socio-economic development of the Baikal protected area and the preservation of the natural resource potential of the unique ecological system, a Commission for the Protection of Lake Baikal and the Socio-Economic Development of the Baikal Natural Territory shall be established. Article 11 of the Federal Law No. 174-FZ "On environmental audit" related to the objects of state environmental audit at the federal level shall be supplemented with paragraph 6 of the following wording: “design documentation for facilities that are planned to be located in the central ecological zone of the Baikal protected area and for the placement of which the transfer of public forest fund land under protection forests, or land plots from such land to land of other categories is permitted".