The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine proposes to abolish the permit for special use of natural resources for minerals, as well as 4 approvals for forestry.
The Ministry has published a draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine that will legally enshrine these changes on its official website.
What instruments of state regulation do they want to remove
In the field of subsoil use, the permit for special use of natural resources in terms of the use of minerals, including those extracted on the continental shelf, may be subject to abolition.
In the area of forestry, the Interagency Working Group recommended the abolition of such approvals:
- additional harvesting of wood during felling for main use within the limits of the amount of current estimated felling that was not used in previous years (in terms of agreement with the executive body for environmental protection of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, regional, Kyiv and Sevastopol city state administrations);
- for the clearing of forest plots in connection with the construction of forest roads outside the boundaries of the allocation of forest plots;
- delay in harvesting and removal of wood;
- technological maps regarding forestry requirements.
Why did they decide to cancel it?
In the Analysis of the regulatory impact on the draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, the authors note the following reasons:
1. The permit for the special use of natural resources in terms of the use of minerals is an outdated and irrelevant instrument, since “today the use of all types of subsoil, regardless of their location, including hydrocarbons on the continental shelf, is carried out on the basis of a special permit for the use of subsoil, which is regulated by the Subsoil Code of Ukraine”. According to officials, not a single such permit has been issued in the last 2 years.
2. Most of the forestry permits proposed to be canceled by this resolution are illegal, as the need to obtain them is not defined at the level of special laws, as required by Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine “On Administrative Services”.
3. The Forest Code of Ukraine does not provide for such a state regulatory instrument as an approval for clearing forest plots in connection with the construction of forest roads outside the boundaries of forest plots allocation. Also, there is no procedure for such approval by the State Forestry Agency at the subordinate level. In addition, according to the State Forestry Agency, no such approvals have been granted in the last 2 years.
"Thus, this tool is illegal and irrelevant, as there was no request from business entities to obtain it, which indicates that these tools are not in demand for business," the analysis states.
4. Tool "approval of technological maps in relation to forestry requirements” is defined only at the sub-legal level, and it is not provided for at the level of the Forest Code of Ukraine. There is also no order (procedure) for such agreement with the territorial bodies of the State Forestry Agency. The provision also does not specify the powers of regional administrations to issue such approval.
It should be noted that, according to the State Forestry Agency, 3,190 such approvals were granted in 2021, and 3,248 in 2022. That is, more than 3,000 economic entities are forced to spend money on the preparation and submission of documents to obtain a known illegal instrument of state regulation. analysis
5. At the sub-legal level, the procedure for obtaining approval of a postponement for harvesting and removal of woodcurrently not established, the tool is not provided at the level of the Forest Code of Ukraine.
At the same time, according to the State Forestry Agency, 57 approvals were granted in 2021, and 48 approvals in 2022. The Interagency Working Group noted that, if necessary, such approval should be granted automatically when processing a forest user's notification of the need for a delay in harvesting and exporting timber, submitted electronically on the EcoSystem platform without the applicant's participation, “and not provided as a separate service, creating an additional financial burden on the business.”
The authors of the analysis of the resolution noted that the abolition of the above-mentioned irrelevant and illegal regulatory acts will reduce the financial burden on business.
“As of today, the estimated costs are about UAH 4.1 million,” they calculated.
EcoPolitic recently talked about the plans of the Ecocommittee for February-August 2025. You can find out more about the draft laws that MPs will be working on in our article.
