Public figure Maksym Bakhmatov called for marking the dubious order of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources No. 308, which turned the protected area of the Holosiiv forest in Kyiv into a farm.
The document was created on the last working day of the old Cabinet of Ministers – August 28, 2019, Bakhmatov wrote on his Facebook page, stressing that it legalized the presence of LFAs and other buildings in the forest.
"We realized this when we started working together with the public of the Holosiivskyi district regarding the issues of the Holosiivskyi forest," he said.
The author added that in the order provides dubious economic justifications for the expediency of transforming recreational natural areas into economic ones.
Holosiivskyi National Nature Park is the only one in Ukraine and one of the few national parks in the world located entirely within the boundaries of megacities.
Bakhmatov told that the office of Transformation, where he is the head, responded to the appeal of concerned Kyivans – residents of the Holosiiv district. Specialists considered and identified a number of issues that concern the public and are potentially risky for the development of the Holosiiv forest locations as a cultural and recreational space of Kyiv.
He noted that in September 2022, the Holosiiv Forest project was founded, the main essence of which is to work on eliminating the problems of Holosiiv Forest locations, among them:
- illegal LFAs on the territory of the forest;
- cessation of business activity that destroys nature and illegally occupies the territory;
- pollution of water bodies by chemical discharges and pontoons, which kills animals, birds and plants;
- solving issues of public toilets, "abandonments" and "defects";
- seizure of the territory of the Holosiiv forest by capital illegal construction.
Bakhmatov also called on scientists who can expertly confirm that what is happening harms the forest to contact him in personal correspondence.
Activist Alyona Denga also said on Facebook that when she first met Bakhmatov in the Holosiiv Forest, he reacted skeptically to the negativity about the business in the park – rope attractions, slides, many LFAs in the green zone (and all this from one owner).
"But after a walk in the park, his opinion changed dramatically after what he saw," she wrote.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in Kyiv, a pit with an area of 1,000 m2 was dug in the landscape reserve "Urochyshche Tserkovshchyna" in the Holosiiv district, which caused damage in the amount of 155.5 thousand hryvnias.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in 2021, Lake Lucrets was covered with construction debris and sand in the Holosiivsky District of Kyiv.
