Ukraine has banned the collection, sale, and purchase of primroses listed in the Red Book, and violators face a fine of 1,700 to 3,655 hryvnias with confiscation of the plants.
To protect the plants from destruction, environmental inspectors, together with the police, are launching the annual spring and winter raid "Primrose," the State Ecological Inspectorate of the Capital District reports on Facebook.
It is noted that the trade in primroses, both sale and purchase, is a violation of the laws of Ukraine "On the Red Book of Ukraine," "On Flora," "On Environmental Protection of Ukraine," etc.
The report emphasized that the trade in primroses is driven solely by demand. Therefore, to preserve rare plants, it is important to refuse to buy such bouquets.
The environmental inspectors urged Ukrainians to report the destruction of flowers to the police by calling 102.
"Indifference in case of detection of lawlessness can lead to irreparable consequences for rare species. One plucked flower of the "snowdrop" species is the stolen life of 45 sprouts," the report said.
Ukrainians face fines for destroying primroses, namely:
- from 510 to 1,700 hryvnias – for illegal acquisition, sale and distribution of objects of the plant world;
- from UAH 1,700 to UAH 3,655 for plants collected in protected areas or listed in the Red Book (with confiscation of plants);
- from 340 to 510 hryvnias – for deterioration of the growth environment of red-listed plants, illegal or illegal removal of them from the natural environment, as well as violation of growing conditions in specially created artificial conditions;
- from 510 to 850 UAH – for the same actions for officials.
As you know, primroses are unique plants that easily withstand frost. They "trigger" the awakening of nature and feed the first insects with nectar. Collecting the flowers of snowdrops, dream grass, snowdrops, cherry trees, heather, etc. interrupts the natural cycle, because the plants do not have time to set seeds. Most of the primroses are already endangered and listed in the Red Book of Ukraine.
In addition, pickers usually pluck the best flowers, which leads to the artificial destruction of the strongest and most resistant plants, and therefore to the weakening of the entire population.
As EcoPolitic reported earlier, ecologists from the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center stated that the bequest of forests helped to preserve and restore populations of rare dream grass, namely meadow (blackening) and broad-leaved (open) dream .
