A significant part of the plots put up for online auctions for the lease of state agricultural land in Mykolaiv and Odesa regions are natural lands, not arable land.
This was warned by activists of the Ukrainian Nature Protection Group (UNPG) based on their own analysis.
They said that the state planned to lease more than 90 thousand hectares of land for agricultural purposes through auctions.
The UPG analyzed such lands in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. The activists found out that a significant part of these territories is not arable land, but natural areas – meadows, steppes, forests. According to their data, in Mykolaiv region, 4.7% (over 990 hectares) of all land to be auctioned is fully or partially steppe, meadow, or forested. In Odesa region, 21% (over 1,250 hectares) is fully or partially steppe or forested.
66.6% of the natural areas to be put up for auction in Mykolaiv region are fully steppe. In Odesa region, this share is 60%.
According to activists, within the Odesa region, 99% of all natural areas are located almost as a single massif within the Petrovirivska community. More than 1200 hectares of steppes and forests in the Srednyi Kuyalnyk river valley are planned to be auctioned off here.
The UPG emphasized that the plowing of these natural areas contradicts the presidential decree on forest conservation and restoration, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Law of Ukraine “On the Basic Principles of State Environmental Policy until 2030,” and the European Union's regulations on combating deforestation.
The activists reported that they had appealed to the Land Bank LLC, which organizes online land auctions, with a demand not to sell these particular natural areas for plowing.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, UPG activists drew the attention of the Ministry of Environment to the problem with auctions for subsoil use.
