On March 27, the Zakarpattia Regional Council illegally changed the boundaries of the “Temnatyk” reserve on the slopes of the Borzhava mountain range.
To bypass the legal requirement of obtaining approval from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources (Min dovkillia) to change the boundaries of a protected area, officials resorted to a ruse. They framed the decision as a mere “clarification of the list of forest plots” included in the reserve.
So, what was excluded from the reserve? The old-growth beech forests on the Borzhava slopes facing the village of Volovets. These include forests that are designated as “natural forests” and are subject to the strictest protection.
However, they had the misfortune of being located where plots for future ski slopes have long been marked on the cadastral map. This is the same area where local authorities recently tried to sell land for a resort at auction.
The high-mountain ridges of the Carpathians, such as Borzhava, must remain free from development!
The decision to change the boundaries is illegal, so we have appealed to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources and the Office of the Prosecutor General to take action to reverse it.
P.S. The initiative to change the reserve’s boundaries came from a little-known NGO called “Defender of Ukraine” from the city of Dnipro. The expert opinion for them was prepared by the Institute of Land Use of the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences of Ukraine, signed by Andrii Tarnopolskyi, Doctor of Economics, Shamil Ibatullin, and Roman Kharytonenko, Candidate of Economic Sciences. As their qualifications suggest, none of the signatories are experts in forestry or conservation.
