Protest in Kyiv: activists tried to shame deputies with the prospect of “bald” Carpathians
At the Verkhovna Rada they protested against the possible lifting of the moratorium on the export of round timber. The action was timed to coincide with the round table “Moratorium on timber exports: results and prospects,” which was held in the conference hall of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
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Activists from Kyiv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv regions are confident that the lifting of the moratorium will lead to barbaric felling of Carpathian forests for export abroad. During the action, two activists sawed several logs to show why they wanted to lift the moratorium.
Timber is already being stolen for export. Timber is exported to Europe under the guise of firewood, i.e. round timber less than six meters long. In 2016, with the current moratorium on the export of round timber, its exports were reduced by 24%, but the export of firewood increased by exactly the same amount.
“Who is deceiving whom? In fact, this year the moratorium did not apply. There is no need to deceive yourself and the EU, but we need to ban the export of firewood and other unprocessed wood,” says Olga Galabala, deputy of the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Council.
The export of sawn wood exceeded its production by 20%, i.e. trees are cut in illegal sawmills. The area of deforestation is growing every year - activists brought photographs to the Verkhovna Rada that show this.
“We demand that the situation in Ukrainian forests be recognized as an environmental disaster. Once upon a time, forest cover in Ukraine was 44%, today, according to official data, it is 15%, and ecologists say it is 11%. When forest cover falls below 15%, it is an environmental disaster,” says Olga Galabala.
Activists are confident that illegal logging should be punished in the same way as terrorism and crimes against national security.
“We shouldn’t fool ourselves by saying that the moratorium needs to be lifted because we are violating some agreements,” says Olga Galabala.
According to her, felling is carried out under the guise of sanitary, i.e. the need to cut down a particular area is usually justified by the fact that the forest there is affected by pests or diseases, is drying out, etc., although this is not the case. Although according to the law it is necessary to carry out reforestation in cleared areas, nothing is done - foresters believe that the forest in cleared areas will grow back on its own. In reality, this does not happen and in large areas the forest is replaced by shrubs. In Soviet times, valuable forests were planted in the Carpathians (which are now being cut down).
According to the deputy, the whole scheme is “tied” to the State Forestry Agency, that is, the directors of forestry enterprises and the officials protecting them are to blame for the environmental disaster.
If deforestation continues at the same pace, then in the foreseeable future the Carpathians will become “bald,” activists warn.
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