The Carpathian Biosphere Reserve is under threat of destruction due to debts

One of the largest nature reserves of Ukraine and the largest territory of the UNESCO natural heritage today is under threat of destruction

The Carpathian Biosphere Reserve (KBZ) is an institution of international importance, the task of which is to protect the national and world natural heritage. This object of the nature reserve fund is part of the UNESCO World Natural Heritage “primitive beech forests and ancient forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe”. The share of Ukraine in the territory of the UNESCO transnational serial heritage is 31.5%, and the share of the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve is 22.8%. This is a unique European-level institution.

But as a result of underfunding by the Ministry of Environment for the payment of land tax and simultaneous pressure on it by tax authorities due to non-payment of taxes (to list which ones the Ministry of Environment would have), the environmental protection institution was held hostage and became a debtor of UAH 50 million. before local budgets.

If, in the future, the issue of payment of the KBZ land tax is not resolved at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine or the Ministry of Environment, the situation with the payment of land tax will get out of control, bankruptcy and the destruction of this scientific nature protection institution of international importance will follow.

Starting from 2022, the Ministry of Environment began to fund the reserve on a limited basis with respect to the funds for the payment of the land tax. In connection with this situation, by the beginning of 2024, the KBZ had a debt to local communities in the amount of UAH 40 million.

In 2024, the reserve must pay UAH 70 million. of this tax, but there is an opportunity to pay only about UAH 18 million according to the received financing.

At the same time, the State Tax Service defends the position of forced recovery of these funds from KBZ, imposes fines and attempts to list the property of the institution as collateral.

A significant decrease in the funding of the KBZ from the Ministry of Environment for the payment of land tax, taking into account the debt that arose in the previous period, will leave the reserve in the future indebted to local communities for the payment of land tax in the amount of more than UAH 50 million, on which tax officials systematically charge millions in fines. Currently, more than 2.2 million hryvnias have already been accrued. penalties.

Let us emphasize that we are talking about a non-profit state budgetary institution, in the existence of which both the State of Ukraine and the people of Ukraine are interested.

The public organization “Danube-Carpathian Program” is concerned about the situation in the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve.

We have already addressed the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Ministry of the Environment in this regard. We call on them to finally pay attention to the critical situation that has developed in the KBZ, and to make efforts for its civilized solution.