Environmental activists have discovered illegal soybean crops on a 20-hectare plot belonging to the Bilozero National Park in Kyiv and Cherkasy regions
This was reported on Facebook by members of the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center (KECC), which constantly monitors compliance with environmental legislation regarding the objects of the nature reserve fund.
They informed that the police had opened a new criminal proceeding No. 12024116240000144 under Article 197-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Unauthorized occupation of land” on the fact of illegal soybean cultivation in quarters 5 and 12 of the Biloozersky National Park. The activists claim that the crops are located “directly against the office of the park management”. They emphasized that such activities of the management of the institution grossly violate the requirements of the Law “On the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine”.
Soy crops in the Beloozer National Park.
Source: facebook.com/kekz.ua.
The KECC also said that the Beloozer National Park is subordinate to the State Administration of the Office of the President of Ukraine (DUS). Activists see this as the main reason for "constant poaching in the park by its administration."
"DUS is not a nature protection body, but an economic body, and therefore is not at all interested in the protection of the park's unique old-growth forests," say the experts of the center.
Therefore, they insist on the transfer of "Biloozerskyi" to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine.
Earlier, EcoPolitic already wrote about violations of environmental legislation in the Bilozero National Park. Thus, in May, KECC activists recorded a massive illegal demolition and removal of centuries-old oaks. In June , together with the police, they found another 20 cut down centuries-old oaks in the protected area of the Biloozersky National Park. And in early November, the center's environmentalists, together with the police, caught the national park's employees themselves on illegal felling.
