Eco-activists criticized the project of the new Cabinet of Ministers resolution "Some issues of felling in the forests of Ukraine" due to proposals to almost completely cancel environmental restrictions on sanitary felling.
Logging is currently regulated by various documents, which are planned to be combined into a single one, reports "Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group" on Facebook.
The authors said that foresters propose to cancel the restrictions on the total volume of sanitary felling and allow:
- carry out continuous sanitary felling in the recreation areas of national parks;
- continuous sanitary felling in the forests of the Carpathians, where they were previously prohibited;
- cut down trees important for biodiversity.
It is noted that similar changes were tried to be made in 2022, but active public opposition stopped these plans.
Eco-activists said that part of the resolution is a draft of the document "Rules of felling in the forests of Ukraine", which provides:
- increase in the volume of felling for main use;
- expanding the possibility of continuous felling.
"The management of the forest industry constantly declares the rejection of continuous felling, especially in the Carpathians. But in fact, everything is the other way around," the UPG emphasized.
- the possibility of felling any non-reserved forest with a continuous felling, because the requirements for a number of different types of felling are quite abstract.
"The document is a green light for increasing the volume of logging in Ukraine. Both the head of the State Forestry Agency (which is expected) and the Minister of Environmental Protection (which is sad) have spoken about this more than once. No protection of forests, only cubic meters and profit," ecoactivists emphasized.
They added that the new rules will remove almost all environmental restrictions on logging that were introduced in December 2020.
"We have already submitted our comments and suggestions to the State Forestry Agency and the Ministry of Environment. We hope that, at least for the Ministry of Environment, biodiversity is not an empty sound," the message said.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, in Transcarpathia, the Yasinyan forest farm planned to increase the annual volume of felling by 45% in its management plan for the next 10 years, of which 80% is continuous.
