Forests are killed at night

While the entire nation was following Verkhovna Rada elections and vote count, some unknown persons were busy destroying ten hectares of century-old pine grove and fencing a construction site in Bykivnia Forest between Brovarsky Avenue and Putyvlska Street. They chose the most auspicious time for their “landscaping effort,” that is, 2 a.m. in the night from October 28 to 29. The chances were minimal that the militia, activists, or conservationists would come and intervene, as all were monitoring the vote count.

On October 30, with logs having been already taken away from the plot, the workers were burning branches and preparing the site for construction. All this was happening despite the fact that Bykivnia Forest is protected by the Law “On the Moratorium on Tree Cutting in Certain Municipal Green Areas of Kyiv,” enacted by Verkhovna Rada in late 2010. The moratorium covers green areas in public and botanical gardens, parks and forest parks, forests, etc. within the city of Kyiv limits. Bykivnia Forest belongs to Desniansky district of the capital and falls, therefore, under the law’s protection. However, the activists say, the moratorium does not guarantee the forests’ survival due to poor enforcement.

According to the chief coordinator of the Kyiv Salvation Forum civic campaign Vitalii Cherniakhovsky who visited the pine-cutting site on October 29, the developer plans to build housing as well as a shopping and entertainment complex. “We have managed to learn something about the developer. It is Soltex Group Ltd., and it had the permit from Kyiv City Council voted on December 27, 2007 and signed by Leonid Chernovetsky and Oles Dovhy. The permit covers woodland that had never been subjected to residential development. Kyiv city prosecutor’s office appealed against the city council’s decision in 2008, but it seems that the developer won the case in court. However, I have not personally seen the court’s decision and I am not sure whether it exists at all. We have not learned further details yet,” Cherniakhovsky says.

According to him, this is not the first unfortunate incident in Bykivnia Forest. “We have seen some infamous things happening there before, as trees were cleared for single-family housing projects, Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox churches were illegally built on the land they seized as squatters, and strong chemicals were poured at trees’ foot causing them to wither and allowing them to be then cut down as dead wood. All this is a system created by the people who are mad with greed,” Cherniakhovsky says. The only way out, according to the activist, is transformation of Bilychi and Bykivnia forests into a national nature park where all development would be prohibited. It is important to have it prohibited by a law, not just by a presidential decree. The campaign’s coordinator provides an example: “We have managed to create Holosiiv National Nature Park, and assault on its territory ceased indeed.”

Cherniakhovsky says it is not physically possible for activists, conservationists and concerned citizens to be everywhere and save from development all forests, parks and public gardens. They are now putting all their resources into fighting for 4,000 hectares of Bilychi Forest which is threatened with development, too. Cherniakhovsky emphasizes the deplorable indifference of the media and most residents to the forest protection issue. “We are trying to create a national park and protect the forests, but have no media coverage. This is wrong, because the forests benefit every Kyivite... What are we going to breathe when they are gone?” he asks.

Unfortunately, such situations demonstrate not only the arrogance with which developers destroy “the city’s lungs,” their disregard for the law and the government’s indifference to the environmental problems of the country, but also the lack of environmental awareness on the part of citizenry. Preservation of green spaces should be among the first priorities and most important moral responsibilities of people living in the country that suffered most from Chornobyl disaster, otherwise we may well have no clean air to breathe in the future.