Members of the government's council on forest industry development approved an action plan for the International Year of Forests, declared by the UN General Assembly for 2011.

The plan includes participation in international events scheduled by the UN Forum on Forests, as well as organising nationwide conferences, meetings and other events, and also competitions for children, teenagers and students.

"These events should focus on a campaign to promote the prevention of forest fires, rational forest use, reforestation and forest cultivating," Zubkov said.

A total of 87 million roubles in federal allocations stipulated for the Federal Forestry Agency will be set aside for these events.

Council members also discussed financing the regional authorities' efforts in the forest industry for 2011.

Viktor Zubkov said that the funds stipulated by the federal government for exercising this regional authority will constitute nearly 80% of the total allocations to the forest industry in 2011. We will provide "25.6 billion of the required 33.2 billion roubles, or 50% more than last year," he said.

The first deputy prime minister pointed out that 6.8 billion roubles in subsidies had been allocated to the regions, for the first time, to buy fire fighting equipment and establish forest nurseries for seed production and selective breeding. The regions will be also granted 18.8 billion roubles for reforestation and fire safety in forests.

"We should scrutinise and if necessary, improve legislation to ensure the proper monitoring of these funds' disposal," Zubkov said after the end of the discussion.