“Green” catastrophe

In European countries urban green spaces in cities and the countryside are treated with great respect. According to data compiled by ecologists, by the year 2010 Great Britain will turn into an oasis. One million trees will be planted in the UK, where green spaces belong to the so-called A zone and are protected by law.

In Ukraine, especially in Kyiv, there is a completely different situation. In the last seven years the capital has lost 400 hectares of green spaces, and trees are being cut down on the central streets. Even the ecological commission of the Kyiv City Council, headed by Anatolii Kovalenko, is not aware of the reasons behind this “green” catastrophe. The commission members only “assume” that this has happened because of the lack of money for planting greenery or the lack of modern watering techniques.

In order not to deprive the capital of its lungs, the ecological commission has approved a draft resolution on the creation of a citywide monitoring program called “The State of Green Spaces in the City of Kyiv.” According to Kovalenko, the program is aimed at gathering information from independent experts on the reasons behind this situation, and scientific recommendations concerning its improvement will be developed.

While the commission is drawing up the paperwork, it has become practically a tradition that before each session Kyiv city councilors face voters carrying placards protesting the destruction of the city’s green spaces. However, those who vowed to defend the interests of Kyiv residents during their electoral campaign seem not to see and or hear them. Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky is constantly putting the blame on his predecessor, claiming that he handed out lands left and right. The mayor is trying to convince Kyivites that his office is working well, having abolished several decisions during the previous session, in particular the one referring to construction on the grounds of 17 Berezniakivska Street.

However, after each session of the Kyiv City Council the number of green zones decreases: within a matter of seconds council members vote to distribute dozens of hectares of protected lands that are supposed to provide the residents of Kyiv with fresh air. According to Kovalenko’s data on the question of ecological policy, during the first six months of 2007 builders acquired 350 hectares of the capital’s parks and squares. At the same time, most questions were submitted for the councilors’ consideration without prior agreement with the ecological commission.

During the previous session on July 12 members of the Kyiv City Council distributed nearly 300 hectares of the capital’s lands for construction. Among them, 90 construction-free hectares that are supposed to be sold at auction. Nearly 73 hectares are green zones, Councilwoman Tetiana Melikhova reported. “For example, the Dniprovska Riviera Company received over 20 hectares of land (Obolon district’s protective riverside zone near Lake Redkine); Hospodarnyk Company acquired 20 hectares of another recreational zone in Holosiivka district.

“The list goes on. No documents on many questions have been submitted for the city councilors’ preliminary examination. Nearly all the land questions were resolved positively thanks to the members of the Chernovetsky Bloc, who vote the way they are told because they are bound together by resolving their own business questions in a ‘you-scratch- my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours’ fashion. And if it sometimes happens that a decision is not ‘passed’ on the first ‘attempt,’ the secretary of the Kyiv City Council submits it for a second vote, as long as he obtains the desired result.”

The land auctions that our mayor used to talk about a lot have also been curtailed.

If lands continue to be distributed at this pace, by the time Mayor Chernovetsky’s term in office expires Kyiv will not be associated chestnut trees but with a scene from the famous film Terminator-2, which portrays a dismal future for the world unless people come to their senses and stop exterminating all living creatures on the planet. On top of it, a large number of trees on Kyiv’s streets (50 percent on Khreshchatyk Boulevard) have simply withered. The same has happened to the expensive linden trees.

COMMENTARY

Volodymyr BOREIKO, director of the Kyiv Ecological-Cultural Center:

“In the last seven years Kyiv has lost 400 hectares of green spaces; today 260 hectares more are ‘under the ax.’ It is common knowledge that land in the capital is expensive and a juicy tidbit for builders, who often dispense with ecological services once they get the land. The worst thing is that Ukraine does not have any effective legislation that would protect green spaces. So today you can cut down practically every tree after paying a symbolic sum of money for it, or without paying anything at all if the tree is declared rotten (this is often a cover for destroying healthy trees).

“This question has to be resolved on the governmental or parliamentary level, because in Ukraine (especially in Kyiv) a very dire situation has been caused by the elimination of green spaces. No European country has this type of attitude to ecology. They have legislative norms for cutting down greenery, and violations are followed by criminal proceedings. But we have a situation where trees in the city center are withering because they cannot tolerate the harmful emissions from cars and evaporations of salt with which street cleaners generously sprinkle the ground.”

Oleksandr DEZIRON , adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of the Environment:

“Unfortunately, Kyiv is subordinated to its city state administration. Therefore, the municipal government does not harmonize its decisions and drafts with us. In my opinion, a decision has to be passed urgently on conducting an inventory of all green spaces, and a ban must be instituted against their destruction. Otherwise, an ecological catastrophe will happen in the nearest future.”