MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. /TASS/. The illegal deforestation in the Eastern Sayan Mountains is one of the reasons of difficult effects of the floods that occurred in the Irkutsk Region in June, Greenpeace Russia said in a letter for Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, the text of which TASS has at its disposal.

"The main reason behind the flood is the heaviest rains in the upper courses of rivers in the Sayan Mountains. However, there are grounds to believe that the wasteful deforestation in the Sayan Mountains and the foothills which changed the character of the forest cover and its water-regulating role could be one of the reasons of the flood’s development," says the letter endorsed by head of Greenpeace Russia’s Forest Department Alexei Yaroshenko.

Sanitary fellings, carried out even on steep mountainous slopes, including adjacent rivers and brooks, have been frequent in the protective forests of the Eastern Sayan Mountains in the past years, firstly in pine nut harvesting zones and spawning zones of forests. Such fellings reduce the forests’ ability to regulate water flows.

If the volume of sanitary fellings remains at the level of 2018-2019, the main part of forests may lose their water regulating functions in the coming decade. This loss will directly influence the risk of future floods and threaten villages located downstream of the Biryusa, Uda, Chuna, Oka and Iya Rivers.

"We ask you to carry out a check of the relevance and legitimacy of ordering and carrying out such sanitary fellings, the information about which is contained in the given address, and in case violations are proved to take measures of prosecutor response to bring the guilty officials to responsibility," Yaroshenko said in the letter to the prosecutor general.