A petition has been posted on the website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by a member of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center (KECC) to dismiss the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, Svitlana Hrynchuk.
The environmental activists reported this on the center's Facebook page.
Its author is Valentyn Viktorovych Zaichenko. The collection of signatures under the petition began on March 26 and will last until June 26 this year. So far, 13 citizens have supported the demand for the minister's resignation.
Screenshot from itd.rada.gov.ua.
Environmental activists reminded that Svitlana Hrynchuk was appointed Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine in September 2024.
“During this time, she has proved to be an extremely incompetent and deceitful official who is only engaged in self-promotion,” they said.
According to KECC members, it was under her leadership that the destruction of Ukraine's environmental legislation began. As an example, they cite the preparation of a draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, which, according to activists, allows free mining on the territory of the nature reserve fund (we are talking about the draft resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on the Abolition of Irrelevant Instruments of State Regulation in the Field of Environmental Protection” – ed.)
The environmentalists also recalled the process of excluding the Markhaliv Forest from the international Emerald Network, which began during Svitlana Hrynchuk's tenure. They added that the ministry's leadership misinformed the Berne Convention Secretariat about illegal logging in this forest near Kyiv for the construction of the National Military Memorial Cemetery.
“We see that the activities of S. Hrynchuk as a minister are criminal, as she deliberately provides false information to an international European institution – the Secretariat of the Berne Convention. This damages the image of Ukraine in the European community and contributes to the continuation of illegal logging of the Markhaliv forest,” the KECC expressed its opinion.
The activists also criticized the head of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine that under her leadership, instead of implementing specific environmental projects, the agency is developing a Concept for the Development of Hunting. According to environmentalists, this document “will lead to the transformation of Ukraine into one hunting range for the extermination of wild animals.”
The KECC believes that during Minister Hrynchuk's tenure, “a real collapse of the reserve business has begun.” They reproached the official for the fact that in 2024, not a single new reserve or national park was created in Ukraine, and the number of new protected areas of local importance decreased by more than 2 times in a year.
Therefore, the activists asked the Verkhovna Rada to dismiss the Minister of Environmental Protection Svitlana Hrynchuk.
On March 18, EcoPolitic reported on the suspicion of environmental activists that the Ministry of Ecology wants to remove the Markhalivskyi forest from the Emerald Network. The activists also caught the Ministry of Ecology lying to the Secretariat of the Berne Convention about logging in this forest. And on March 25, the KECC accused the Cabinet of Ministers of falsifying the composition of the Emerald Network in Ukraine and continuing the construction of a military memorial cemetery.
Also on March 20, activists of the NGO Markhalivka.Support picketed the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, demanding the dismissal of its head, Svitlana Hrynchuk. The police were called to the protest.
