Ukrainian environmentalists criticized draft law No. 7475 "On the protection of the state border of Ukraine", which is designed to strengthen the protection of the state border, primarily by expanding the border strip to 2 kilometers.
The document proposes the removal of part of the land from the nature reserve fund (NRF), without changing status, and their transfer to the State Border Service, reports "Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group – UNCG" on Facebook.
The Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law in the first reading on September 20, 2022.
Environmentalists explained that the state border of Ukraine sometimes passes through riverbeds, impassable swamps, forests, etc. Such natural ecosystems create an insurmountable obstacle for the advancement of military equipment.
Currently, 120,000 hectares of protected lands are located in a two-kilometer strip along the state border of Ukraine with russia and Belarus.
"Preservation of the NRF, as a national property of Ukraine, is defined by the laws of Ukraine, and until 2022 there were no questions as to whether the border strip could be coordinated with the territories of the NRF. However, now this issue has been brought to the highest level of decision-making – to the level of making changes to the legislation," ecoactivists write.
They emphasized that some provisions of the draft law may lead to the loss of the nature reserve fund and thereby endanger the preservation (and possibly become the direct cause of the destruction) of the national heritage.
Thus, the draft law proposes to establish, for the period of martial law and within a year from the date of its termination or cancellation, the change of boundaries or cancellation of the status of the territories of the NRF for the construction, arrangement and maintenance of engineering and technical and fortification structures, fences, border signs, etc., which will be carried out by the authorized State body to make a decision on the creation or declaration of the territories of the nRF on the basis of the request of the central body of the executive power, which implements the state policy in the sphere of protection of the state border of Ukraine.
It was noted in the material that this rule actually transfers the powers of the Ministry of Environment and local authorities to change the boundaries and cancel the status of territories and objects of the nature reserve fund to the State Border Service and establishes a new procedure, which provides for the participation in the process only of the State Border Service and the President of Ukraine (for territories and NRF objects of national significance), the State Border Service and regional councils (for local significance, respectively). No biological and ecological component is anymore important, and decision-making regarding territories created for the protection of particularly valuable natural objects no longer require any assessment of such value, because a priori it nullifies such value regardless of objective conditions.
The conservation value of the territory will no longer be important when making decisions on the cancellation or reduction of the areas of protected areas.
Such a norm may lead to the liquidation or cause extreme damage to 90 protected objects of various categories located on the border with the aggressor countries.
Also, the draft law proposes to supplement Article 46-1 of the Land Code of Ukraine with a new part, according to which the lands of the territories and objects of the nature reserve fund along the state border line are transferred to the military units of the State Border Service of Ukraine for the construction, arrangement and maintenance of engineering and technical and fortification structures , fences, border signs, border crossings and communications.
However, this Article defines restrictions on the use of lands of the territories and objects of the nature reserve fund and does not regulate the issue of providing land plots of the nature reserve fund for use.
"This rule will lead to the transfer of the lands of nature reserves and national parks, territories and objects of NRF of other categories to the State Border Service, whose function does not include the management of the nature reserve fund. This can lead to the destruction of the natural values of the territories and objects of the nature reserve fund, which is protected in the state as a national asset," explained the ecoactivists.
This also applies to objects included in international biosphere reserves and protected by UNESCO. At the same time, all the powers of the Ministry of Environment regarding the protection of protected areas are not transferred to the functions of the DPS, that is, the authors of the draft law do not plan to transfer the function of protection and management of nature protection territories to the State Border Service together with the lands. Therefore, this feature will be lost.
The UPG stressed that the adoption of the document without revision will lead to the fact that Ukraine will have to spend huge sums of money for many years on the development of draft decisions on changing the purpose of land plots, liquidating the status of a nature reserve fund, developing land management projects, solving other land issues .
Eco-activists believe that the issue of construction, arrangement and maintenance of engineering and technical and fortification structures, etc., can be settled by establishing a special regime for these territories, establishing the right of land easement for individual plots, and developing a clear algorithm of cooperation between state authorities and organizations subordinate to them.
As EcoPolitic reported before, environmental activists suspect that the Cabinet of Ministers "gave the green light" for privatization at least one of the 38 forest plots in the Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, with a total area of more than 17 hectares.
