The most valuable steppe area is burning in the Dzharylgatsky National Natural Park. As of Saturday, July 5, the fire had lasted for 5 days.
This was reported by the "Ukrainian Nature Protection Group" on Facebook. It is worth emphasizing that Dzharylgach has been under occupation since the first days of the full-scale invasion. The special administration of the national park cannot ensure its preservation.
"The area that burns for 5 days is a zone of absolute protection in the national park, where even human visits are limited. The main part of all steppe ecosystems of the island are concentrated here (the rest of the territory is swampy to varying degrees or periodically flooded) and the population of all rare steppe animals, which is on the island. It is also where the largest number of ungulates living on Dzharylgach is concentrated," the report said.
It is noted that this area received the protection status as a reserve back in 1974, 35 years before the creation of the national park.
NGO experts warn that the fire, which no one is even trying to put out, will bring colossal losses to the island's biodiversity.
Certificate: Dzharylgach is an island in the Karkinit Bay of the Black Sea. The largest island of Ukraine and the Black Sea. Administratively, it belongs to the Skadovsky district of the Kherson region. The entire territory of the island and part of the adjacent water area is part of the Dzharylgatsky National Nature Park.
As EcoPolitic reported, in March of this year, the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ruslan Strilets, said that Ukraine appealed to international environmental conventions to recognize Russia's actions in the occupied nature reserves of the Kherson region as illegal.
