Reserve “Rostochchia”
- the only nature reserve in the territory of Lviv region
- the area of the Reserve is included in the UNESCO world natural heritage, as one of the heritage sites “Beech primeval forests of the Carpathians and other regions of Europe”,
- is the largest core of the cross-border Ukrainian-Polish biosphere reserve “Roztochchia” which was formed by the decision of the 31st session of the International Coordinating Council of the UNESCO Program “Man and the Biosphere” on June 19, 2019 in Paris.
- corresponds to Category I of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
- received the official status of the territory of the Emerald Network of Europe on November 15-18, 2016 at the 36th meeting of the Standing Committee of the Berne Convention in Strasbourg (France).
The National Forestry University of Ukraine appealed to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine with a request to subordinate the “Roztochchia” nature reserve to the University. And since the current legislation does not allow this, they are even ready to make changes to the Laws of Ukraine. And it looks realistic, given the “turbo regime” and the lack of discussion in the Verkhovna Rada, under the guise of martial law.
It is not clear what such subordination will bring and what is now preventing the university, as a scientific curator, from helping and supporting the “Roztochchia” nature reserve.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first attempt to destroy the reserve. In 2010, during Yanukovych’s time, Minister of Education Tabachnyk issued an order depriving the Reserve of its legal status. In fact, it was about the liquidation of the Reserve. Then the public managed to get this order revoked.
The operator of Roztochchia software is the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. This situation of interest in particularly valuable land near Lviv would not have arisen every 10 years if the “Roztochchia” PZ was under the control of the Ministry of Environment. For more than 20 years, the public has been recommending the government of Ukraine to transfer all PZF facilities to the Ministry of Environment. Failure to solve the basic resource problems of the state for a long time leads to an increase in the risks of corruption.
This time, the interested parties in the BP are aiming for larger-scale changes – legislative changes mean the introduction of amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine” in the part of canceling the provisions on the need for an administration in nature reserves and their existence in the form of a separate legal entity. Thus, the planned decision will also apply to other nature reserves and possibly other objects of the nature reserve fund.
As of today, there are 19 PZs in Ukraine, of which Ukraine has lost access to 9 due to hostilities. In particular, the fate of 6 nature reserves in occupied Crimea is unknown, and the largest of them – Crimean – has been disbanded. Part of the software is located on the border of Belarus and Russia, where there are restrictions on their operation due to the risks of invasion.
In the EU, there are numerous support programs that help overcome difficulties in attracting funds for environmental protection measures, develop science and institutional capacities of environmental protection institutions, in particular, HORIZON, LIFE, INTERREG and others. NLTU, as a scientific curator, has nothing to prevent it from developing support programs rather than trying to absorb an original institution.
We invite everyone who cares to speak out in support of the PZF and send letters of support for the “Roztochchia” PZ to the addresses of the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the Environment, as well as NLTU.
Look for a sample letter and instructions on how to send it at the link:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U6u0kFBoMtbVf9n4ZgErcOSvS5WlUdaZA3Li4AiYRZY/edit?usp=sharing
