Today, we are not criticizing the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agricultural Policy – we are expressing our gratitude!
The Ministry has publicly stated that it DOES NOT support the proposed cancellation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure for forest logging and has requested that these changes be excluded from Draft Law No. 13227-d, “On the Timber Market.”
The Ministry’s position is influenced, in part, by the stance of the European Commission and the European Parliament, which have repeatedly emphasized the critical importance of the EIA procedure (Otsinka Vplyvu na Dovkillia) in the context of Ukraine’s European integration commitments.
We hope that the authors of this idea—deputies on the Parliamentary Committee on Economic Development (Ekonomichnyi Komitet Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy)—will at least not ignore the position of their own profile ministry, as they previously ignored all warnings from the public.
The Threat of Deregulation
We remind all stakeholders that the State Enterprise “Forests of Ukraine” (DP “Lisy Ukrainy”) and the State Forest Resources Agency (Derzhlisahientstvo), instead of focusing on combating corruption and illegal logging, sought to solve the forestry sector’s problems by simply abolishing environmental restrictions on felling.
If this were to happen, they would be able to operate without any independent control, leading to:
- Logging of old-growth forests that are currently inaccessible or legally protected.
- Ignoring the presence of Red Data Book species (nationally threatened species).
- The clear-cutting of hectares of natural forests in the Carpathians under the false pretext of “sanitary logging” (salvage logging).
The Ministry’s defense of the EIA procedure is a crucial step in maintaining the rule of law for environmental protection in Ukraine.
