Alexej Ovchinnikov
Each month, the UWEC editorial team shares highlights of recent media coverage and analysis of the Ukraine war’s environmental consequences with our readers. As always, we welcome reader feedback, which you can leave by commenting on texts, writing to us (editor@uwecworkgroup.info), or contacting us via social networks.
Environmental agreement for Ukraine needs reworking, say Ukrainian NGOs
The “United for Nature. Agenda for Ukraine” forum, which we wrote about in our previous review, was held on January 31. The event saw the presentation of recommendations by the High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War, led by Andrii Yermak, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, and the former Swedish foreign minister Margot Valstrem. The text is titled “An Environmental Compact for Ukraine. A Green Future: Recommendations for Accountability and Recovery.”
The document spells out three main priorities for dealing with environmental consequences: monitoring damage and reducing risks; bringing the perpetrators to justice (through the International Criminal Court); and mobilizing the “green” reconstruction and recovery of the environment.
A total of 50 recommendations have been prioritized. Their implementation, according to representatives of the group, will not only make it possible to receive compensation for the damage caused, but will also contribute to the green recovery of Ukraine. According to experts from UWEC Work Group, the most useful of the recommendations are those related to ensuring the transparency and accessibility of environmental information, the involvement of civil society, the restoration of proper procedures for the participation of stakeholders in environmental impact assessments, etc.
As forum participants told the UWEC Work Group, the representatives of Ukrainian environmental and conservation organizations invited to the event pointed out that work on the document would have been more efficient if Ukrainian NGOs had been involved. The organizers therefore declared that they were prepared to insert amendments to some recommendations and consider more effective mechanisms for their implementation.
The first recommendation in the Environmental Compact for Ukraine is the creation of a high-level coordinating body that will collect and analyze evidence of the war’s impact on the environment. If this body is open to the inclusion of civil society representatives such as Ukrainian environmental and conservation organizations, the group should be more open to adjusting and reworking both priorities and recommendations.
Visualizing the environmental consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine
It is still extremely important today to ensure that information about the environmental consequences of the war can be spread as widely and easily as possible. It tells the world that the war is not over, has not left their screens, and that its consequences will be catastrophic for the region – and possibly the whole world – for many years to come.
The most effective means of distributing information is visual media, such as infographics, time-lapse photography, etc. One such project was developed by the Polish national daily Gazeta Wyborcza in collaboration with marketing agency Top Lead.
“The purpose of our research was to explain that the war poses threats not only to Ukraine where the fighting is taking place, but also to other countries and continents,” explained Top Lead CEO Stanislav Shum.
The study introduces Ukraine’s nature and allows the reader to draw conclusions about the environmental consequences. For example, the use of time-lapse photography allows us to see the impact of the fires caused by the war upon nature reserves, national parks, and forests.
The project is the result of a joint collaboration with the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ukrainian and Polish think tanks and media. However, UWEC Work Group experts drew attention to the narrow circle of those participating in the project, including the obvious lack of representation by environmental and conservation Ukrainian community organizations.
As in the case of the Environmental Compact, communication between research groups is incomplete, possibly due to the lack of a single platform that would bring together all experts, activists, and journalists working on the topic of the war’s environmental consequences.
Biodiversity Viewer: a new tool for guarding Ukraine’s biodiversity
Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group has developed an app that aims to provide a wide audience with information about rare species. This will allow community participation in monitoring and observation, increasing public interest in nature and contributing to the study of biodiversity both now and during Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
The user-friendly tool enables access to the GBIF international biodiversity database. Users will be able to obtain information about protected species in a certain area: where they have been observed; where their presence can be verified. The app will be of use to both those with a casual interest and specialists employed as staff in nature reserves and national parks. The project already contains about 2.5 million units of data.
The project was made possible with the help of Dutch partners The Habitat Foundation and the support of the Netherlands Biodiversity Information Facility (NLBIF).
You can read more about the application on the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group’s website (in Ukrainian). You can also try out the online Biodiversity Viewer.
How conservationists work in wartime: participants share their experience
Ukraine’s Dim (Home) television channel recently broadcast a discussion featuring Ivan Moysiyenko, head of the botany department at Kherson State University and member of the board of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group NGO, Oleksandr Khodosovtsev, a professor in the botany department at Kherson State University, and Viktor Shapoval, director of the Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve. They explained what was happening in the reserves and protected areas under occupation or on the frontline.
For instance, Shapoval shared the details of how Askania-Nova was able to continue operating as a Ukrainian reserve for 13 months under occupation. It was only in March 2023, after the Russians created a new administration at Askania-Nova, that the director left the reserve. Even then, the reserve’s technical personnel remained onsite to continue their work.
Read more about Askania-Nova:
- Askania-Nova Biosphere Reserve captured by invaders
- Fires in Askania-Nova: Consequences of military occupation of a reserve
The unique ecosystem, which includes over 2,000 plants and around 2,300 animal species, is a complex combination of natural and artificially created environments that require constant monitoring and care. The reserve is no stranger to hardship, having survived German occupation in 1941-1943 and then the loss of its leadership and best specialists during the repressions of the late Stalin era. Today the reserve is once again in danger and it will only be possible to preserve it only through the well-coordinated teamwork of a number of groups, from scientists to the military.
“Today Askania-Nova exists by inertia. The reserve’s work continues thanks to the technical staff who are still in the occupied territories”, said Shapoval.
Oleksandr Khodosovtsev used the example of the Kamianska Sich National Park to explain the impact of the frontline and occupation on nature reserves. Although researchers arrived in the park within three weeks of its liberation, it is not currently possible to conduct a full analysis of Kamianska Sich, since 80% of it is mined.
“The frontline passed through Kamianska Sich National Park twice – during the occupation and during the de-occupation. During the liberation, the frontline stopped right on the border of the park, which had an extremely negative impact on it,” said Ivan Moysiyenko. “In addition to the construction of fortifications and mining, nature also suffered from fires resulting from exploding shells, and the movement of heavy equipment. In addition, whole mountains of garbage were left behind where Russian soldiers were billeted. Over 1,000 trees were also cut down.”
Read more about the impact of fortifications on nature:
The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam also affected Kamianska Sich and other conservation areas. Soon after the explosion, an expedition was organized to analyze the consequences. However, as Oleksandr Khodosovtsev notes, most areas downstream of the dam were naturally prepared for flooding. The bed of the drained Kakhovka reservoir, where the ecosystem began to recover remarkably quickly, was therefore of particular interest.
“If in June 2023 the bed resembled a Martian landscape, then when we came in October, we saw willow thickets two to three meters high,” says Ivan Moiseyenko.
According to Viktor Shapoval, rebuilding the reservoir on its former scale is not about the interest of the energy sector, but rather the issue of ensuring that sufficient water resources can be distributed to agricultural areas. However, even if the reservoir is resurrected, this does not mean that the problem will be resolved: the entire system of canals, which is rapidly deteriorating, needs restoring and upgrading. It is therefore necessary to look for another solution to the problem of supplying water to agricultural areas, one that does not involve rebuilding the Kakhovka hydroelectric station.
In addition, as Moiseyenko noted, the position on preserving the natural areas of Velykyi Luh, which were exposed after the draining of the reservoir, fully complies with the European program for the restoration of natural areas. It is quite possible that choosing not to resurrect the Kakhovka reservoir (if the agricultural issues are resolved) will allow Ukraine to move closer to achieving the European Union’s climate goals.
Read more about the importance of restoring the ecosystems on the bed of the former Kakhovka reservoir:
Main image: Outcrops of marl limestones near the village of Respublicanets (Kamianska Sich). Image credit: Klymenko Vitaliy
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