Dear Friends!
Today, fires caused by military operations are one of the main drivers of ecosystem destruction and biodiversity losses in Ukraine. Moreover, comprehensive impact monitoring is impossible in wartime, and there is no quantitative data regarding the burning of forests and steppes since the full-scale invasion began over two years ago. Damage resulting from the last decade of fires has yet to be calculated as well. Generally less forested, agricultural and steppe landscapes in eastern Ukraine are especially affected by the fighting. Burned forests in those areas will be more difficult to restore, and their role in mitigating climate change in the region will be almost impossible to replace. This month, Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group director Oleksiy Vasyliuk examines monitoring of forest fires caused by military operations:
In conditions of the ongoing war, it is generally very difficult to effect environmental protection measures in nature reserves and national parks. Since the full-scale Russian invasion began, 812 protected area sites totalling roughly one million square kilometers have been damaged by military operations. Taken together, this jeopardizes achievement of the European Union’s Biodiversity Strategy, an important focus for Ukraine’s European integration. Expanded implementation of rewilding practices in wartorn areas offers one potential solution. Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Hubareva explores this topic:
Despite the ongoing hostilities, nature continues to spontaneously recuperate. Today, there is even a special term for this – war-wilding. War-wilding can occur in areas affected by the full-scale war in Ukraine and is essentially a natural process of ecosystem restoration in areas abandoned by humans. That said, it is important that restoration contributes to the conservation of the country’s biodiversity rather than becoming ground zero for the spread of invasive species. Despite the ongoing war, Ukrainian environmentalists are carrying out initiatives to rewild territories. Learn about how rewilding occurs and explore examples of rewilding in an article written by Ukrainian experts for UWEC Work Group:
This month we focus on energy in our monthly review of stories related to the war’s environmental consequences in Ukraine. Intensified shelling of energy infrastructure in early April again raised the issue of how to restore Ukraine’s energy system. UWEC experts propose that electricity generation and the distribution grid be decentralized and become more energy efficient, in other words, moving away from large generation units such as thermal power plants, nuclear power plants, and hydroelectric power plants:
UWEC Work Group experts Eugene Simonov and Oleksiy Vasyliuk also studied the question of decentralizing Ukraine’s electric industry and explore how development of renewable energy generation relates to conservation practices as well as the role of “green energy” in Ukraine’s integration with Europe:
You can read more of our analysis and news of the environmental consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on our website, on Twitter (X), Facebook, and Telegram.
We wish you strength and peace!
Alexej Ovchinnikov
Editor, UWEC Work Group