About 102,000 hectares of self-seeded forests were discovered in the Kyiv region, which could potentially be used to restore Ukrainian forests.
They were discovered during the inventory of self-forested areas in a digital format, which is currently being carried out throughout the country, reports Ministry of Environment on Telegram.
"Due to the military aggression of the Russian Federation, Ukraine is losing its forests. Since February 24, almost 3 million hectares of forest have been destroyed by war. Under occupation and hostilities, there are currently about half a million hectares of forests that we may lose. So today there is an understanding that we must use every opportunity to restore our forests. One of the ways is to preserve the self-sowing plants that have grown over the past several dozen years on lands removed from agricultural use," said Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources Ruslan Strilets.
The inventory is jointly conducted by the Ministry of Environment, the State Forest Resources Agency and the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre for the implementation of the Law "On Forest Preservation".
During the inventory, 716,000 hectares of land covered with forest vegetation were discovered in Kyiv region. Of these, almost 102,000 hectares are self-forested, which can potentially be used for forestry.
The message explained that orthophoto plans with the boundaries of forest vegetation on a certain territory are used for the inventory. The boundaries of the forestry enterprises of this territory are imposed on them and the land plots that are not included in their composition are determined. They also exclude lands for nature protection, historical and cultural, forestry purposes, water fund, industry, transport, communication, energy, defense, etc.
"Those areas that remain after such an analysis are potential areas for forestry management," the report says.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that territorial communities in Ukraine for two months returned 11.4 thousand hectares to the forest fund of the country self-seeded, that is, natural forests.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted draft law No. 5650 "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts on the Preservation of Forests", which is intended, among other things, to preserve natural forests.
