Coniferous forest is being felled near Dnipropetrovsk

Dnipropetrovsk – It has been two months since residents of the suburban settlement of Ki­rov­ske started writing complaints and repelling on their own machinery-equipped invaders. The initiative group representative Mykola Tarnavsky told the press that trees were still being felled in the pine forest to the right of the entrance to the settlement. Unknown persons were surveying the land and digging there to prepare for the start of single-family housing construction. “We ask the authorities to hold a review of the legality of the land allocation for development in the pine forest. This forest has been planted before WWII started, and it is a part of our ancestors’ cultural heritage, a place where birds and animals live, as well as a recreation place for residents of both Kirovske and Dnipropetrovsk. Its destruction could lead to disruption of ecolo­gical balance.”

Recently, the settlement’s residents have sent collective letters to the forestry, environmental inspection, militia and prosecutor’s office, asking them to investigate the situation. Some of these institutions have answered to the citizen complaints. Director of state enterprise Dnipropetrovsk Forestry Duminsky informed the residents that the abovementioned plots of land, despite being a part of Kirovske’s municipal lands, were directly adjacent to the forestry lands where construction was forbidden. The forestry had not been consulted before the decision to allocate the plots was made, and it reported that fact to the environmental prosecutor’s office. Meanwhile, the settlement’s residents spotted announcements of these plots’ sale on the official website of a real estate agency. Interestingly, the local authorities deny any involvement in the allocation of the plots in the fo­rest. The residents themselves maintain that the fellers’ permits are valid not for the plots in question, but for different plots at the other side of the settlement, and even the signatures themselves on the permits’ photocopies look very suspicious. Meanwhile, the regional authorities have become involved in reviewing the legality of felling the pine forest. “Dnipropetrovsk region is the least forested one in the entire country,” said Viktoria Shylova, human rights deputy chairperson of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council. “This is a very sad fact, especially because we are leading the nation in polluting the environment. Therefore, the region needs every tree it has.” The council decided to create Dnipro Forests Landscape Park only a year ago, in September 2010. The park’s territory includes the forest near Kirovske which is being felled now. The deputy chairperson traveled to the place of conflict and left it having seen for herself that the unknown persons enclosed approximately a hectare of forest and ma­na­ged to fell trees on a half of this area. Shylova explains: “They want to build yet another single-family housing complex, but they have got no building permits and, of course, no tree felling permits either.” She says the council is currently preparing a formal letter to the Dni­pro­petrovsk regional prosecutor Natalia Marchuk asking her to investigate the situation. Meanwhile, the uninvited guests are not going to abandon their project, and the settlement’s residents would not abandon their struggle, too. They have planted young acacia and birch trees on the deforested land and built from stone a cute alpine slide there on November 12-13.