The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine has developed and published a draft Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Implementation of the Provisions of the EU Law on the Conservation of Flora and Fauna of Ukraine” to implement paragraph 1711 of the Action Plan for the Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
The relevant announcement was published on the website of the Ministry of Environment. The same link also provides the draft law, an explanatory note to it, and a comparative table.
What changes are proposed?
The new draft law provides for the addition of Article 53 "Import into Ukraine and export beyond its borders of objects of the animal world and tools for their extraction" of the Law of Ukraine "On Animal World" and Article 32 "Import into Ukraine and export beyond its borders of objects of the plant world" of the Law of Ukraine "On Plant Life".
In particular, it is prohibited to import products into the territory of Ukraine for commercial purposes:
- from pinnipeds (animals of the seal, walrus, and walrus families), except for those that are the result of traditional hunting by the Inuit – indigenous inhabitants of arctic and subarctic regions;
- from animals of cetacean species specified in the appendix to this law.
The changes proposed by the Ministry of Environment provide that the importation into Ukraine and exportation of plant life objects may be limited or prohibited by law, for the purpose of protection, rational use and reproduction of plant species that are under threat of extinction or are protected in accordance with international treaties of Ukraine.
The developers of the document also made two appendices to the laws on animal and plant life. They contain voluminous lists of objects of flora and fauna prohibited for import into Ukraine and export outside of Ukraine.
What European documents will be implemented
The new draft law adapts certain provisions of the laws of Ukraine "On the Animal World" and "On the Plant World" to the following acts of EU law:
- Council Directive No. 83/129/EEC dated March 28, 1983 regarding the importation into member states of skins of certain seal pups and products;
- Regulation (EU) No. 1007/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council dated September 16, 2009. on trade in seal products;
- Implementing Regulation of the Commission (EU) 2023/2770 of 12.12.2023 on the prohibition of the introduction into the Union of specimens of certain species of wild fauna and flora in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No. 338/97 on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora;
- Council Regulation (EEC) No. 348/81 of January 20, 1981 on common rules for importing whales or other cetacean products.
Comments and proposals to the draft law are accepted within a month from the day of its publication on the official website of the Ministry of Environment (ie from 01.08.2025) to the e-mail address tabolina.s@mepr.gov.ua or the postal address st. Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivskyi, 35, m. Kyiv, 03035.
Earlier, EcoPolitic reported, that the Cabinet implemented the European REACH regulation on the safety of chemical products.
