Yushchenko in Volyn
Volyn oblast — President Yushchenko said that the meeting to address problems of nature reserves that was held in Volyn resort center “Lisova Pisnia” was the first of a kind on such high level in the years of Ukraine’s independence. Quite fittingly, it took place in Volyn oblast, a region that has over 250 lakes and 130 rivers, unique forests, and a great treasure — Lake Svitiaz, which was voted one of the seven natural wonders of Ukraine last year and is sometimes even called Ukrainian Baikal for its clean waters.
The reason why Yushchenko got to the village of Haivka, where the resort center is located, by helicopter rather than by car was not only that it is a much faster way of transportation. The president also wanted to see Volyn from the sky with all its lakes, and then to share his impressions at the meeting. He said: “When you fly by helicopter over Volyn the first impression is that God scattered here a handful of the joys of nature.”
Yushchenko also spoke about his impressions from his trip last year when he visited flood-stricken regions of Ukraine: “You fly closer to a city or a village and instead of a park you see dozens of sawmills. River beds and banks are all covered with sawdust within about 100 meters.”
Even though hundreds of sawmills were closed after inspections by the prosecutor’s office, it will take a long time to change our way of thinking. Today in Ukraine the territory occupied with dumps is twice as large as that occupied by natural preserves. The ratio of natural preserves is 15 percent in Europe, whereas in Ukraine it reaches only five percent.
Yushchenko spoke about the Polissia belt as one of the problematic regions controlled by forest rangers with chain saws. Last year the president issued two decrees aimed at creating 43 new national parks and widening the territory of nine already existing natural preserves. However, the representatives of Derzhkomlishosp put up especial resistance. The reason is the fact that national parks threaten the existence of the state forest hunting ranges. That is why these people demand … full reimbursement for the territories that will be used as parks.
The larger borders of the Carpathian biosphere reserve have not yet been legalized. In the last eight months 300 hectares of forests that were supposed to be included in it have been cut down.
Soon a new edition of the Red Book of Ukraine will be published. Its last edition came out in the mid-1990s. The number of endangered plant and animal species has grown from 300 to 1,400 since then. The president also said that in the 18th year of Ukraine’s independence the populations of Carpathian bears, bison, and wood grouses are rapidly decreasing. He called on the heads of the existing national parks to find hundreds of ways of attracting investments, including the formation of boards headed by oblast governors in order to revive the existing species by joint efforts.
The president also spoke sharply on certain burning issues. He said that he did not see any social ads on Volyn’s highways that would provide tourists with information about the oblast’s outstanding specimens of nature. Another problem he mentioned is that in Ukraine only half of the lands in natural preserves is registered according to the law.
Yushchenko said that the grabbing reflex of the Ukrainian “elite” can rob the famous Nikitsky Botanic Garden of a quarter of its territory. Private buildings has occupied the banks of Lake Synevir.
Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Tetiana Korniakova added that the prosecutor’s office has again identified unlawful buildings constructed on the territory of Shatsk raion in Volyn oblast. The law enforcement agencies promise to stop this disorder, whereas the future of famous Lake Svitiaz and 30 more Shatsk lakes is threatened by the nearby Khotyslav quarry development in Belarus.
