In February, the European Commission published an analytical report on Ukraine's ability to fulfill the conditions of EU membership. It is significant that environmental protection received the lowest rating – only one out of five. As you know, the process of joining the European Union is based on specific achievements. There are certain goals to be achieved and evaluation criteria. But the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources is really worthy of such an assessment.
For three years now, our media platform has been closely monitoring the activities of the Ministry of Environment, as the main body implementing the country's environmental policy. And we can confidently say that we do not see any real steps on the part of the department. Since 2010, no minister has been able to stay in his chair longer than three years. But this period is not enough to reform the legislation, and it is not even enough to get acquainted with the field. Therefore, it is no longer important who manages the structure. Due to the fact that our ministers do not stay in office for a particularly long time, it is simply impossible to carry out reforms of the environmental protection system.
Let's start with the fact that the current head of the department, Ruslan Strelets, became a minister not because his candidacy was approved in the government offices, but because of the start of a full-scale war and the clear non-priority of this issue. As of February 24, 2022, Mr. Strelets was an acting minister, but the legally defined term when an acting minister can head the ministry was coming to an end, and in April he was appointed to the position of minister, although many were not satisfied with his candidacy. He has been in office for more than a year, but positive changes in really problematic issues are still not visible.
Reform of household waste management
Currently, Ukrainians pay UAH 35-60 per month for garbage removal, depending on the region. For this measly amount, it is impossible to sort it and send it for recycling. At the same time, the number of landfills is only growing throughout the country, and only a small part of enthusiasts is engaged in sorting garbage. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to buy garbage from abroad, because the Ukrainian household waste processing industry lacks raw materials.
According to experts, local recycling enterprises are only 70% loaded. We are talking about cardboard and paper factories, glass factories, enterprises that process polymers and plastic. According to Ukrvtorm, in the five months of 2021, Ukraine imported almost 135,000 tons of waste paper, 22,000 tons of plastic waste, and more than 5,000 tons of broken glass for a total of almost 1.2 billion UAH. So while the country is drowning in garbage, we are also forced to buy it from abroad.
On June 20 of last year, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law "On handling household waste". Its goal: civilized waste management like in Europe. In practice, nothing declared by the law has been implemented so far.
Pollution of water bodies, lands, air
Ukraine is included in the list of countries with a shortage of water resources. We rank 32nd out of 40 European countries according to this indicator — only 4% of the country's territory is occupied by water bodies. At the same time, Kyiv and other cities with millionaires occupy the first places in the air pollution anti-rating. Lands are being actively destroyed by aggressive agriculture. These are the most acute problems that already affect the life and well-being of Ukrainians. After all, in Ukraine, the number of diseases caused by the aggressive influence of the environment only increases every year.
According to the report of the State Environmental Inspection on the results of 2022, the total amount of damage to water resources calculated by the department amounted to almost UAH 42.8 million. We are talking only about losses from economic activity, the damage from hostilities is not even taken into account here. If only in this area the damages reach such a scale, it would seem that the resources of the Ministry of Environment should be devoted to solving the problem, but no. The main occupation of the department at the moment is digitalization of services in the environmental sphere. And while officials are busy transferring services online, the rivers, forests, water and air of Ukraine continue to brazenly pollute. Why polluters are not afraid to commit a crime, because they are sure that they will not be punished for it. And this is true, because a smaller part of cases about damage to the environment go to court, and an even smaller part receives a decent sentence for the perpetrator.
Deforestation
The forestry industry of Ukraine suffers from intruders who destroy the national green resource. In our state, which has a rich forest fund, the issue of illegal logging has always been acute. Due to imperfect legislation, a confusing regulatory system, cross-functional government agencies that are supposed to control the industry, and, of course, rampant corruption, we are losing one of our most valuable resources – the forest – at a record pace. Every year, Ukrainian lawmakers talk about forest reform, which is designed to stop forest arbitrariness, but everything remains at the level of conversations.
Meanwhile, according to the official estimates of the State Inspectorate, in the first six months of 2021, violators who were engaged in illegal cutting down of forests caused damage to Ukraine in the amount of UAH 108.3 million, for 2020 they reached UAH 316.7 million.
Forest industry reform
On September 7, 2022, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted Resolution No. 1003 "Some issues of reforming the management of the forest industry". It became effective on September 10 and provides for the reform of the forest industry. A reform is being rapidly implemented in the industry, which is practically not advertised or discussed anywhere, but radical changes started in the fall and reached an active phase in the winter.
At the end of 2022, all the employees of the forestry farms wrote applications for dismissal, and the forestry farms announced the termination of their activities. At the same time, the state enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" was created, where all former forest farms should go and which, according to many foresters, is the start of its further reformation into a private joint-stock company. However, there is too little official information on this matter. Forest workers themselves have the impression that there may be reasons why reforms are deliberately implemented with as little publicity as possible.
Issuance of EIA conclusions
Public organizations and business representatives have been publicly claiming for a long time that the "Environmental Impact Assessment" procedure in Ukraine contains a corruption component in its current form. At the same time, experts agree that during the time of the Minister of Environmental protection and natural resources Roman Abramovskyi, despite the controversial issues, the procedure worked. On November 3, 2021, the Verkhovna Rada dismissed him. With the arrival of Ruslan Strilets' team at the Ministry of Environment in May 2022, the situation worsened. The market began to signal more about groundless refusals to receive EIA and corruption pressure.
In connection with the Russian attack on our country and the introduction of martial law, the Government introduced changes in the functioning of information and communication systems and electronic registers. In particular, this also applies to the Unified Register of EIA.
An important nuance of the entire EIA procedure is publicity, however, in wartime, for security reasons, public access to the Unified Register of ATS was closed. According to the law, all stages of the procedure must be informed to the public both through the register and through print media. Without access to the registry, the element of publicity was not observed, which is the basis for canceling the conclusion of the EIA. Thus, EIA conclusions issued during the war can be canceled for formal reasons.
Problems with access to information
The website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection was available less than 43% of the time in October 2022 alone, i.e. it was down 57% of the time. From February to March 2023, the website of the Ministry of Environment did not work for almost a month. On the first day of the website failure, February 23, the Mindovkill press service cited a cyber attack as the reason. The work of the resource was promised to resume within a week. However, the work lasted almost 3 weeks.
The Ministry did not give an explanation for the reason for the delay in the restoration, did not name those responsible for the cyber attack. In addition, after February 23, the press service never reported on the current state of solving the problem. It is worth noting that representatives of the Ministry have repeatedly stated that digitalization remains an unchanged priority of the Ministry of Environment.
The ministry is closed
Representatives of environmental NGOs and businesses complain that the current ministry makes decisions behind closed doors. Only information on the calculation of environmental damage from Russian aggression and international meetings appears in public access.
"The current practice of the executive authorities does not take into account the limited access of the public to official sources of information due to constant problems with the operation of the sites and the lack of a stable connection, electricity. Because of this, there is a violation of the right of every citizen to access information and the right of the public to participate in the process of public discussions, which is guaranteed by a number of international and Ukrainian legal acts, in particular, the Aarhus Convention and the Law of Ukraine "On Access to Information", members of the NGO Save Dnipro note.
In their opinion, this led to non-compliance with the deadlines for public discussion of draft laws and by-laws, and, as a result, to the adoption by the Cabinet of Ministers of the scandalous Resolution No. 272 "On approval of the procedure for the introduction of mandatory automated pollutant emission control systems." They note that this is just one case out of many.
Currently, there are rumors among the environmental community that the chair under Mr. Strilets has wobbled. President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal are especially dissatisfied with his activities, for whom the "unit from the European Commission" has become a public shame. It is interesting that recently at public meetings organized by the ministry, Tetyana Tymochko, head of the All-Ukrainian Environmental League, has increasingly been acting as moderator. Who knows, but perhaps we will soon be faced with new personnel changes at the Ministry of Natural Resources? At the moment, the names of the likely candidates for the post of minister have not been disclosed. The editors of EcoPolitics will follow the development of events and will definitely inform their readers.
