Velykyi Luh (that means a great meadow) was artificially flooded by the communist authorities during the construction of the Kakhovka Reservoir in the 1950s. This is one of the most important natural and historical landscapes of Ukraine. After the Russians blew up the Kakhovka HPS dam, this territory ceased to be a reservoir. Currently, many…
Earthsight has learned that a vessel carrying some €40 million of Russian conflict timber has been seized by German Customs. The ship, 23000-tonne Atlantic Navigator II, was en-route from St Petersburg in Russia to the US east coast when it developed a fault and was forced to dock at Rostock port on the German Baltic…
The Odesa Regional Council has announced the establishment of 3 local landscape sanctuaries. Last year we submitted the application for their creation. The total area of the sanctuaries is over 635 hectares. Congratulations to everyone involved in this joyful achievement! There are some words about sanctuaries: Landscape sanctuary “Kolo Gleya” (45 hectares). The protected area…
Not only biologists need information about the distribution of biological species. This knowledge is necessary for the establishment of protected areas, planning of forestry activities, preparation of EIA reports, and urban planning documentation. However, it is not easy to find such data in the public domain. Their largest hub is the global biodiversity database GBIF,…
It was a final vote. The Law should be approved by the Council of the European Union in the nearest future. What targets does this new European law set? – 30% of natural habitats in poor condition must be restored by 2030, 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050. – Natural habitats in good…
Leading Ukrainian environmental NGOs have appealed to the US Government to include a ban on timber imports from Russia in the new sanctions package announced by President Biden. The text of the letter is below: Expansion of US sanctions to Russian timber imports Dear Under-Secretary Nelson We, leading Ukrainian environmental NGOs, are writing to…
Kholodnyi Yar National Nature Park was established on 1st January 2022. On that day the dream of many generations of conservationists came true (the idea of national park establishment arose in the 1980s of the last century). However, 2 months after its establishment a full-scale war began… Nowadays, the priority is the support of Armed…
During 2023, we created protected areas, detected cases of damage to the nature reserve fund (NRF), opposed projects and plans harmful to nature. What did we achieve this year? Nature reserve fund We prepared applications on the establishment of 78 new objects of NRF (including three new national parks) in 14 regions with a total…
The main idea of the draft law is to unite small land plots into larger ones. The authors of the draft consider field roads, gullies, ravines or patches of biodiversity to be an inefficient land use. There are following proposals in the explanatory note: – to remove narrow strips of land to facilitate plowing…
The biggest storm in at least the last 100 years occurred in the Black Sea at the end of November. It caused damage to the infrastructure of the temporarily occupied Crimea, and limited the ability of the occupiers to use their navy (which we are very happy about). However, damage was also caused to Ukrainian…