Shocking Cases of Illegal Logging Uncovered Again in Lviv Region

A forested area near Strilbychi, Sambir District, Lviv Region, has once again become where timber thieves act boldly, with impunity and audacity. The absence of fair punishment for this crime reveals a troubling aspect of human nature: destruction is often more appealing than creation. Tree theft requires no responsibility or care—it simply serves as easy money. Understanding why unauthorized logging is akin to shooting oneself in the foot, in the long run, takes considerable critical thinking.

For these relatively simple, yet deeply philosophical reasons, our NGO team once again conducted a field inspection in the Staryi Sambir area after receiving a report from concerned residents of the Sambir community.

Fig. 1. Location of freshly cut tree stumps in the territory of Regional Communal Specialized Forestry Enterprise "Halsillis", Bachynske Forestry, and locations of vehicles carrying illegally harvested timber.

During the inspection, experts caught the thieves red-handed: they were loading cut trees onto a GAZ-53 (or 52) truck withlicence plate ВС 5448 ВО using a tractor. A Niva passenger vehicle stood nearby. Once the loading was complete, the truck and tractor headed toward Strilbychi. However, before reaching the village, the perpetrators concealed the cars in the nearby bushes. By the time law enforcement arrived at the scene, called in by the experts, the tractor had already vanished.

Instead, the hidden truck was found loaded with 11 white fir logs. Nearby, on the road between Velyka Sushytsia and Strilbychi, a horse-drawn cart carrying several logs was also discovered. The timber had no electronic tags, a serious indicator of illegal logging. Why are these tags so important? They are proof of legal logging operations, which must be recorded in the Open Register of Logging Permits and the government platform “Diia.”

All logs came from a single site, as confirmed by the locations of freshly cut stumps marked on the map above. Legal logging must involve tagging the selected trees with official stamps placed on the root collar above ground level. In this case, the cutting was selective—white firs were removed at various distances from each other. Only a few stumps bore markings that resembled official control stamps, possibly made by forestry workers. However, it would have been registered if this were a legitimate operation. Since no mention exists in any registry, the logging is likely to have been unauthorized.

The logging site was neglected, littered with wood scraps, and showed fresh signs of skidding—tracks from dragging logs from the forest to the loading spot.

The NGO ForestCom team submitted all gathered information to the police. The area near Strilbychi seems to be “cursed,” as illegal logging has been repeatedly discovered there since early 2018. But there’s no mysticism involved—the real culprit is impunity. The lack of just punishment only emboldens thieves to return again and again. We await the opening of a criminal case and an objective investigation to finally end this lawlessness.

VIDEO from the scene

You can report illegal logging on the website: https://forestcom.org.ua/uk

Read about illegal logging in the Starosambir region in previous publications:

• Illegal Logging in Starosambirshchyna: Circular Responsibility vs. Justice
• Local Outcry: illegal Logging Sparks Outrage in StaroSambir
• "ForestCom" experts discovered signs of illegal felling in the Starosambir Forestry District of the Starosambir State Forestry Enterprise "Halsillis"