In February 2025, the President of Ukraine signed a law that explicitly banned off-road vehicles (jeeping/quad biking) within Protected Areas Fund (PZF) sites.
To implement this law, PZF institutions, such as National Nature Parks (NNPs), were required to define exclusion zones in their organizational documents (known as “organizational projects”) where the movement of jeeps and quad bikes, even by local residents, is prohibited.
This is critical because there is a distinction: while necessary movement might be required for, say, servicing polonyna (high-altitude meadow) farms within a protected area, this legal “loophole” was widely exploited to conduct large-scale, commercial jeep tours.
In the spring of this year, we appealed to the then-extant Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources (Min dovkillia) to instruct the national parks to implement the necessary changes. We specifically highlighted the most popular off-roading spots in the Carpathian National Nature Park (NNP), such as Mount Yahidna and Mount Makovytsia.
The Ministry forwarded our letter to the NNP administration, but it appears no action was taken. Our specialists, visiting the Carpathian NNP last week, observed convoys of jeeps in the mountains, and the internet remains full of advertisements and videos promoting jeep tours operating within the park boundaries.
It appears the administration of the Carpathian NNP is not interested in combating off-roading, complying with legal requirements, or fulfilling its mandate to protect nature.
The critical question now is: What will the Ministry of Economy – which now manages the national parks following the recent governmental reorganization – say or do about this blatant failure of environmental enforcement?
