KANSK, Russia — During the long summer days in Siberia, logging trucks rumble out of the forest heaped with Siberian larch, Scots pine and birch bound for sawmills run by Chinese who can barely believe their good fortune.

“Everything here is Chinese,” said one lumberyard foreman, Wang Yiren, pointing to some of the hundreds of sawmills that in the past few years have popped up along the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Feeding China’s colossal appetite for wood has brought jobs and cash to the region, but has also helped to make Russia the global leader in forest depletion, fueling fears that Siberian logging towns will eventually be left without a livelihood.