Professionals from the Association of Environmental Professionals (PAEW) and more than 200 experts discussed the failure of the Department of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources to fix the environmental control crisis as part of reforming its system.
This happened at a round table dedicated to the reform, which brought together representatives of authorities, the public and business, scientists and experts, reports the Office of Sustainable Solutions.
"The concept from the Ministry of Environment today is another attempt to imitate the reform, changing concepts, proposing "reform" without a road map and deepening the crisis even more," the president said. PAEW Lyudmila Tsyganok.
It is noted that the existing eco-control system has a number of gaps, including:
- lack of a system of state control, basic law;
- existing legal acts contain ambiguous provisions;
- for years, the State Environmental Inspection has been performing the role of a punitive body without a preventive function;
- duplication of powers, due to which business is under pressure;
- lack of trust in the body.
The article emphasized that the eco-control system needs reform. However, Ukraine spent about 2 billion hryvnias on previous unsuccessful attempts, which have been ongoing since 2018. The project of the new concept does not contain information regarding:
- necessity and validity of the proposed changes;
- systematicity, in particular in the context of the White and Green Papers on reforming the system of state supervision (control), the Action Plan for the implementation of the Concept;
- scientific support;
- resource security of the offer, the results of the necessary financial and economic calculations related to the implementation of changes, taking into account the necessary funding in the State Budget for 2024.
Olena Kryvoruchkina, the deputy head of the parliamentary committee on environmental policy and nature management, emphasized that the reform should not become another change of "signs", but should take place in accordance with European principles and requirements. Qualitative reform should be based on the analysis of previous failures. However, no one analyzed the failure of Concept 2017.
"I created an international working group at the Ecocommittee to expertly prepare high-quality solutions that will fundamentally change the situation," she said.
Kryvoruchkina added that today the State Environmental Inspection is the only body responsible for recording environmental damage as a result of armed aggression. There will be a certain delay in work between the liquidation of the DEI and the launch of the new body.
"The warning is not in the context of the interests of protecting the environment, but in the context of the interests of protecting the state during martial law – will not such a proposed Concept play "into the hands" of the aggressor?" she explained.
Andrii Demydenko, a member of the Scientific and Technical Council of DEI and PAEW, emphasized that the concept provides for the creation of a single integrated, transparent and effective system of supervision (control) and monitoring of the state of the natural environment.
"Adding the function of modern monitoring to the DEI, it should be turned not into a nature protection inspection, but into a nature protection, or rather ecological, agency," he noted.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the State Environmental Inspection criticized the concept of reforming the eco-control system, in particular due to the suspension of the calculation of losses from Russian military aggression during the formal liquidation of the department.
Previously, EcoPolitic analyzed the reform of the State Inspectorate and why it is now being "hidden" unfolded.
