Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Protect Leningrad Region's Forests From Illegal Dumping
Authorities in Russia's Leningrad Region have released interim results from the Clean Forests program, which runs through 2030. The region is shifting toward comprehensive digital monitoring of forest ecosystems using neural networks and AI-enabled camera traps.
In 2025, authorities removed 184 illegal dumpsites across the region. Together they contained roughly 9,000 cubic meters of waste – enough to fill about three and a half Olympic-size swimming pools.
Measuring a Cleaner Forest
Cleaning up waste delivers only temporary results unless it is paired with preventive measures. Without them, illegal dumping quickly returns. To address that problem, the region has installed 92 high-tech camera traps equipped with AI capabilities. Integrated into the Stop.Svalka (Stop Dumping) system, the devices do more than record video. They analyze images in real time, automatically detect vehicles and people entering high-risk areas, and immediately alert environmental enforcement authorities.
The camera traps can also recognize license plates, dramatically reducing the need for inspectors to conduct repeated patrols along forest roads. Instead of searching hundreds of hectares for evidence of illegal dumping, environmental officers receive a digital evidence package containing the time, geolocation, vehicle registration number, and footage of the dumping itself. Just as important is the deterrent effect. When people know their license plates can be identified and forwarded to law enforcement, the temptation to avoid proper waste disposal at nature's expense drops sharply.
Meanwhile, the next phase of the cleanup program is scheduled for 2026, when authorities plan to eliminate another 67 large illegal dumps with a combined volume estimated at 13,500 cubic meters.
Illegal Dumps No Longer Hide From the Camera
Back in 2023, environmental agencies relied primarily on satellite imagery. At that time, the Russian Environmental Operator and Sber Business Soft were developing neural network algorithms capable of identifying illegal dumps from space, producing static maps of pollution hotspots. At the same time, the Moscow Region began testing its first 2,000 cameras designed to monitor heavy-duty trucks.
Federal digital services began to emerge in 2024, including solutions built on the GosTekh platform. AI systems learned to identify not only illegal dumps but also unauthorized quarries. In the Moscow Region, AI processing large volumes of monitoring data helped identify more than 215,000 violations related to territory maintenance. In 2026, the Nizhny Novgorod Region adopted a similar approach by launching an automated system that detects illegal disposal of bulky waste through the city's camera network.
Smarter Environmental Protection
The number of these "smart" cameras is expected to increase across the Leningrad Region in the near future. They will be installed near allotment communities, quarries, forest roads, and access routes to populated areas, locations where illegal dumping occurs repeatedly. The camera traps may also be integrated with government information systems, while the AI algorithms themselves are expected to become more sophisticated. Beyond recognizing license plates, they could identify the type and approximate volume of illegally dumped waste, map incidents onto a unified digital pollution map, and analyze the routes taken by vehicles transporting construction debris. Together, those capabilities would create a continuous chain of oversight, from detecting a violation to issuing a fine.
The Moscow Region already demonstrates how such an approach can work in practice. In 2023 alone, computer vision technologies identified approximately 1,700 violations involving construction waste disposal. The system operates as an integrated network in which incoming data flows to processing centers, automatically generates tasks for municipal services, and helps authorities respond quickly to environmental damage.
Looking ahead, forest camera traps are likely to be integrated with Safe City surveillance cameras, satellite monitoring, and unmanned aerial systems to create a unified digital environmental protection network. Even today, however, the Clean Forests program demonstrates how digital technologies can provide continuous protection for the forests of the Leningrad Region.
By the end of last year, Russia had recorded 8,674 illegal dumpsites nationwide, down from 8,927 in 2024. As smart monitoring technologies continue to expand, illegal waste haulers will have fewer and fewer opportunities to avoid accountability.
